And I Kind of Like You Driving Me Crazy
by marrymemilo
Summary: Literati, Java Junkie, LD. Season 3. Sequel to FTBOMH. Rory and Jess are good, but it'll take effort to get past Rory's family and Jess's past that does anything but haunt him. ON HOLD FOR NOW.
1. Sugar Daddies

**All right, I promise a long time ago to LitGG1982 that I would replace this first chapter with a more internationally-friendly version. I apologize to her endlessly, I felt like a Grade-A moron for doing this. I used the term "Nazi" as a simple and careless insult and I have apologized and am replacing with something more appropriate. Please accept my deepest apologies to all of those who I've offended. **

**Also keep in mind, as I plan on saying in Chapter 7, reviews do make the world go around. It helps writers get motivated by getting acknowledged for their work! My last 2 chapters have been getting very few reviews and it concerns me. Even if you don't have great things to say, I want to hear them so I can improve my writing!**

**Again, this is for LitGG1982 and all those others who were offended but didn't speak!**

**A/N-All right, so I decided to go with my first idea and name this _And I Kind of Like You Driving Me Crazy_, which hopefully will have significance, but is already self explanatory. **

**This story is directly consecutive to the Season 3 happenings of _From the Bottom of My Heart_, but it won't include any more Season 4 stuff until I work my way there. **

**I'm hoping to add more to stories after this one. I'm looking at it also only being about fifteen chapters long. The conflict in this one will be a little bit more situational as opposed to the last conflict (to avoid spoilers, I'll keep my mouth shut). **

**Note, PLEASE READ!In order to understand where I am going with this story, how it starts, or how the past has affected it, you WILL need to have read _From the Bottom of My Heart_. Whereas, you could read that and not read this and be fine. Either way, just know that IF you choose to read this as a standalone, I am NOT responsible for confusion. **

**With that said, onto the THANKS (and there are many!) for my last update—**

**Kat-As usual, thanks a bazillion times. Hope you like this one just as much! You were and are my fave reviewer! **

**Nicolle-I already told you, but your review was by far the most extensive and made me the happiest. I have it saved on my computer. I honor your feedback so much, thank you for taking the time as the great writer that you are, to read my beginner's work!**

**Bittersweetbloodbaby-I've already told you this so many times, but thank you for taking the time to read my story. It's been an honor. I hope you continue to read and enjoy as I have with your work.**

**Spinaround-I'm glad I finally got that sorted out for you! Sorry it was so confusing! You'll be glad to hear this one isn't in that same format, so your confusion will end! Thanks for reading!**

**Papaslittlecj, sanfrangiantsfan, miloluver, Kylie1403, just hidden, gottalovethegilmores, lexi, curlygurl, Jade-Tessier, music4mysoul, mezz, HOLL3R, Waffler, and MiloxIsxSexy—Thank you immeasurably for your kind words of encouragement! They really helped me finish that story. I just wanted to say that FTBOMH was the first FanFic that I ever finished and was proud of and I couldn't have done it without ANY of you!**

**So, I don't own Gilmore Girls, and I'm not Amy Sherman-Palladino. Here we go….!**

It was Halloween day in Stars Hollow and the fear of the nights activities were safely excluded from the community. Children ran around in costumes, hopped up on sugar, and that was by far the scariest aspect. Teenagers would carouse the town a little later and maybe vandalize Doose's if they had the nerve, but, for better or worse, things were calm.

Lorelai and Rory Gilmore crossed the street to the market on the mild Sunday afternoon, both giddy.

"I love Halloween," Lorelai said as they entered the store and were instantly inundated with the shelves of candy that were placed before them.

"Buy it while you can get it ladies," Taylor said as he walked up to them hurriedly. "I only roll these bad boys out for holidays and they are in short supply, let me tell you." He stepped back and appraised Rory. "Miss Gilmore."

Rory, temporarily confused as to Taylor's distance, looked at him curiously before their conversation in the square more than a week ago crept back into her mind. "Uh, hi Mr. Doose, nice to see you again," she said politely, hopeful.

Taylor straightened his back and looked at her imperiously. "Good to see that somebody remembered to take her manners pill this morning," he said briefly before he walked out of the vicinity again. Lorelai and Rory exchanged a look and Lorelai gestured mystically.

"We will _never_ understand that man, I swear," Lorelai said as he began selecting bags, somewhat randomly.

"Question. Why do we always buy seventeen bags of candy when we only get nine trick-or-treat-ers?" Rory asked her mother as she pulled down a bag of M&M's and handed them to her.

"Because," Lorelai said, getting off into a rant of reasoning where she didn't think or know how to prove that she was right, "kids these days have higher standards in amounts and you know how they know about profit margins and stuff…," She trailed off. Rory smiled sympathetically and nodded along, knowing that Lorelai would fail all the while. "All right, I don't know, but we should buy it while we can!"

"We are never going to be able to get rid of all of this," Rory pointed out.

"We'll freeze it!" Lorelai said tremendously.

"Frozen candy sucks," Rory complained.

"No candy sucks more!" Lorelai exclaimed.

"There are other ways to get candy than Taylor's thrice-annual candy sale," Rory said reasonably. Lorelai reached out and picked up a bag of Sugar Daddies.

"How often do we see big bags of Sugar Daddies?" Rory fidgeted, her face falling as she realized her secret obsession with the candy. She once had eaten three in an evening and still managed to get a full night's sleep.

Rory fidgeted, her rational excuses failing her. "Not often." She paused again and watched a Cheshire-Cat sized smile spread across Lorelai's face. "I really want one, okay? Just put them in the basket and keep walking, geez," she said, pushing Lorelai. Rory briefly felt a familiar breath near the back of her neck and she felt the pulse in her neck jump exponentially when she realized who it was.

"Boo," Jess said quietly as he brandished a single, brand-new Sugar Daddy before Rory's eyes. She grinned and blushed, turning around to kiss him. She heard Lorelai's cries of disapproval as she covered her eyes and looked the other way, only egging on the teens further and causing them to grin, pleased with her displeasure. They broke finally in submission to Lorelai's chiding and turned to see her, gesturing frantically across the small market where they could see Dean working, not having caught on to the antics yet.

Quickly collecting themselves, Jess offered the candy to Rory again and she grinned at him thankfully, taking it and pressing a small kiss to his cheek. She turned to her mother and watched as she shoved her index finger down her throat, jokingly disapproving.

"Oh hush," Rory whispered, laughing still. She would've had it in her heart to hate Dean if he had broken it, but it was never his to break and she now knew that much. So instead she chose to look at him as a fixation of her environment. He would always be there, always scowling or towering or threatening to ruin things with Jess, but he would never know the validity of their bond and he couldn't break it, no matter how he imposed.

Lorelai gave Rory a look of seriousness and Rory rolled her eyes when she turned back around. The pair, accompanied by Jess who was quietly, but amusedly following, chose their final selections and went to the register, weighing their chances of Dean being their Bag Boy.

"Rory," Jess said, seeing her squirm in discomfort. "I wanted to show you this idea that I have, but we need to go outside, you need the visual of the town to really get it," Jess said in mock seriousness, pulling her close to him by wrapping an arm around her, a claim to their relationship. She exhaled a little and smiled up at him, thankful for his presence. Even if Rory knew where Dean stood in her life, it didn't mean that she wanted to be around him when she didn't have to. Lorelai sighed loudly and Rory smiled at her and waved as they walked out the door. Lorelai winked at her to show her carefree manner and proceeded through to the checkout.

Outside, the couple walked to the intersection and waited to cross back to the diner, Rory looking at him appreciatively.

"What?" Jess said, half laughing as he noticed her staring mixed with a loony smile. She looked ahead as they crossed the road, his arm around her shoulder protectively, smiling despite her idiocy of the moment.

"I just realized that I haven't thought about Dean for one offhand second since we've been together, and I was going to feel bad about it, and then I just had the shocking realization that I love you," she said to the side of his smirking face as they reached the other side and he pulled her close by the collar of her jacket, feeling macho until she said I love you.

He faltered for a second, his world shaken and turned, skidding out of balance, but he maintained all the while, holding steadfast to her jacket, to her words. They had exchanged words that suggested the fact, shared kisses and retrospectively cheesy moments of boundless adoration and obvious affection, maybe love. But the words. He'd never dreamt in a thousand years of togetherness that he'd hear them.

Then her speaking them so profoundly, almost goofily. It dawned on them both at the same time that there wasn't a more perfect way for Rory Gilmore with all of her adorable quirks to tell someone that she loved them. And anything was better than punctuating the statement with an exclamation point and the word 'idiot'.

She didn't take his silence and disheveled look as disbelief or hurtful silence. She took it as shock with a good peppering of awe and she savored the seconds like champagne and let them sit in her mouth, the bubbles and tingles rising to her palate before the burn of pleasure would caress her throat and sink into her bones like a prayer.

Jess found his voice hanging from his belt loop and pulled it back into this throat, but not before grinning at her with a combination of admiration and something only identifiable as love. And without hesitation nor agenda, they fled from his lips.

"I love you too," he said as he watched her smile while he found the words and leaned down to kiss her. His masculinity reclaimed by returning her favor, he pulled her almost off the ground, pushing their bodies together almost inelegantly so. But the weight of the moment outweighed the town's reservations on etiquette and it all seemed to fall from the grace of a black and white Audrey Hepburn movie for a brief moment when Jess wasn't analytical.

"Hey now," Lorelai said, walking up, destroying the détente of their kiss and resulting in Rory blushing twenty different shades of pink. Jess just put a street-legal amount of space between he and Rory and stuffed his hands in his pockets, avoiding Lorelai's eyes, but the glow of a landmark playing in his eyes. "Making out on street corners isn't allowed in this town. Something you know very well," Lorelai said to Rory as she walked into the diner, past the two, clearly trying to distract from the two huge bags of candy she was toting.

"Hey! Where did all of that come from? When I left you we had ten bags, that has to be at least fifteen!" Lorelai did some quick tabulating in her head and re-closed the door to the diner.

"You are such a crap bag today! Being all lovey with your _boyfriend_ and then turning around and yelling at me because I impulsively bought a bunch of Snickers!"

Rory blinked at her mom. "I think we need to go home before you die of sugar withdrawal," Rory said, looking at her mom and then at Jess. "Call me?" she pleaded.

Jess rolled his eyes, overdramatic and kissed her. "Fine." Walking down the street, the girls linked arms, Rory still tutting at her mother's hording ways.

Meanwhile, Jess watched them walk, mesmerized by their camaraderie and banter that in any other situation with any other group of people would have been off-the-wall insane. But their bond was toxically poetic. They regaled one another gracelessly and the casual awkwardness didn't bother them or the followers of their wake. Jess watched this with a level of cautiousness. He could sip from their fountain of youth unnoticed, it was his thing, but he could never fully bask in the childish innocence that they so faithfully sustained.

He had grown up too fast for his childhood to still live strong within him. It had shriveled away with the hunger for holidays, for affection, for attention. It all died away.

Still watching, Jess smiled mournfully. The murderer of his purity was dead. Provided, the killer was his mother, he was still justified. And the fact that some shred of justice being served started to satiate the itching hunger that had presided in his stomach since she has emotionally abandoned him.

"Jess!" Luke called through the door, Jess still standing on the corner with his hands in his pockets, now watching a void. "Get in here, your break ended ten minutes ago. I don't have time for this," Luke said, exasperated but happy. Only Jess could really tell.

Luke could be livid with him but as long as he knew where he was and that he wasn't off impregnating his girlfriend, Luke was actually happy with him. It didn't take much to please Luke. It took a lot to get him to show it.

Taking one last appraising look at their path, Jess felt their influence fading away. But he never felt it, even in waves of adolescence, leave his heart that moment.

"Seriously, stop being such a damn slacker," Luke said in a last-ditch effort to get him inside. Sighing heavily, Jess turned on his heel and entered the diner behind his uncle.

xxx

Evening had wrapped its arms lovingly around Stars Hollow in anticipation of the outside world, and inside the habitants began to suffocate on the anticipation of candy.

"Rory?" Lorelai called, coming out of the kitchen where she had been emptying bags of candy into a more-than-likely unused cooking pot.

"Hmm?" she said from her position, nestled so far into the couch with her book that she didn't hear the doorbell ring.

"We have customers, and I have to pee, wanna field this one?" she asked pleadingly as she danced at the base of the stairs.

"You got it," Rory said, bouncing up and quickly retrieving the overflowing pot, dragging it into the entrance hall.

"Trick or treat!" she heard as she opened the door, eyes still focused, shocked, at the sheer quantity of candy that was before her. Quickly looking up, she found Dave Rygalski smiling at her, wearing a very cute clown costume, and someone next to him, draped copiously with a white sheet, eyeholes cut in an all-too The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown manner. Rory stifled a laugh, but wondered who it was.

Before she could wonder aloud, she heard a muffled "Hi," and the sheet was being lifted.

"Lane?" she asked, taken aback. Now that Lane was of good marrying age, Mama Kim let go of all of her childish rule breaches and made sure Lane passed out pamphlets on Halloween, directly advertising the dangers of the devil and supporting him in such a mass gathering. Lane was clad in a yellow, bible camp t-shirt, tucked into her jeans in a way to please her mother, and a pair of very modest jeans, the outfit finished by a pair of unmarked sneakers.

"Yeah, I snuck out so I could hit some candy. You'll probably be my first and only house. I heard Taylor grumbling about Lorelai putting him out of business and I figured if I got here right away, this was the place to be," she said quickly, gesturing nervously. She and Dave had been together only briefly and her general cadence with him was still inhibited.

"Sounds like a plan. She did clean him out. Jess and I ducked out before Hurricane Dean made his way over to bag up the goodies and I didn't get to police her purchases," Rory said as she dumped innumerable handfuls into their bags. Lane checked the bottom of her bag and shrugged, handing it to Dave.

"Sneak it through my window at eleven," Lane said, also slipping off the sheet and handing it to him, checking herself for sinful debris. "Thank you a million times Rory."

"Bless you _and _your children," Dave said, grinning as he peeked at the bottom of his bag.

"Who are a very long way off, indeed," Lorelai said, coming down the stairs, grinning at Dave who was now waving.

"How're you doing Lorelai?" he asked.

"Not bad," she replied, equally pleasant.

"That's good. Well, I have to be going, Lane has to return to her mother's bible reading and I am supposed to be ushering her through the dangers of All Hallow's Eve. I'll see you both later, thanks for the candy!" he said as he galloped off the porch and into the night, he and Lane subconsciously entwining their hands.

"So cute!" Lorelai gushed when the door closed and nobody could hear them.

"I know, aren't they?" Rory said, also smiling uncontrollably.

Lorelai bent down and picked up a mini-Snickers. "A toast!" she said, unwrapping it ceremoniously. Rory grinned at her and picked up on of her own.

"A toast!"

"To Lane and Dave, Luke and I, and you and…," she trailed off, sounding almost as if she had excluded his name. She moved to take a bite out of the bar and Rory stopped her, by clearing her throat.

"Jess! Geez, holidays do not do anything for your nerves," Lorelai said, knocking candy bars with Rory and taking a bite. Rory smiled as she chewed the car and dwelled on her afternoon.

"Not always," she said dreamily. Lorelai looked at her with her eyebrows together in curiosity. Rory caught this movement and Lorelai raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Something I need to know?"

Rory grinned.

**(Very much happening in this chapter, this story will be more emotional than situational. Hope you like it!)**


	2. Damn the Cheery Chickens

**A/N-A million thanks to everyone! The response for my first chapter was overwhelming, I'm glad I still have people out there who will trust me as an author! However, I have no time currently to type up my shout-outs that I pride myself on….please forgive this err in time management. There was also an email mishap that resulted in me needing to get a new one, so several reviews did not reach me until much later so as I said, sorry! **

**I don't own a freakin' thing.**

"Monday," Lorelai groaned, knocking on Rory's door where inside she was pulling her Chilton sweater over her head, glancing at the door when she heard her mother shuffle by.

"Monday," Rory grunted in response when she exited her room, reaching for her backpack that threatened to pull her down with its sheer girth. She pulled on her jacket and buttoned the buttons, her fingers feeling independent from her body as it worked without the aid of caffeine. Meaning barely working at all.

"If we run we can go to Luke's," Lorelai said as she also put on her jacket and picked up her purse. Rory checked her watch.

"Mom," she started, pointing to the watch. "It's seven. We don't have to run."

"Seven? Lorelai screeched, staring at her, awestruck with the car keys in her hand. "I could've slept a whole other half hour. Damn the cheery chickens," she said, referring to the barnyard alarm clock.

"Clucking isn't exactly the modern day equivalent of "Good morning Vietnam"," Rory said as she walked out the door ahead of her mother.

"Do they make an alarm clock that makes that noise?" Lorelai asked as they walked side by side, looking at Rory densely. Rory glared at her through the bluish morning light, not amused by the hour they were out and about and the tone of a general Monday morning.

Lorelai retreated silently, not offended. They walked in companionable silence, at a fairly quick gait. Lorelai looked over at Rory and saw the draw of her face change as she let thoughts come into her mind, be quickly examined, and sometimes get thrown out of her other ear. She saw Rory blush at one thought and Lorelai's mind began reeling.

_Nothing in her life up to this point should cause blushing upon reminiscence. I'm gonna have to kill that kid,_ Lorelai thought. She smiled when she thought of the pleasantness that had overcome Rory's face as she appeared to dwell on said thought, silently replaying it in her head.

"Earth to Rory?" Lorelai said, laughing at her daughter's spacey complacency.

"Yeah?" she said, looking at her mom, trying to wipe the mild blush and smirk off of her face.

"You okay there? Looked like you got the white-hots for somebody in your head there and I figured I should drag you out before I had a grandchild that could cross dimensions," Lorelai said, casually over-explaining.

Rory flushed deep fuchsia. She didn't know her mother to be especially aware. Particularly in the morning, before coffee, and of the now transfixed picture of Jess mouthing that he loved her before he filled her with more want and physical need than she had ever sought after. Then again, there was no way her mother knew those details. She may have noticed her slight coloring and change of carriage. Slouched, almost as if she was hiding some divine secret, afraid to expose it.

"Okay, either you have some serious, record breaking insta-fever or I caught you fantasizing about the hoodlum," Lorelai said, trying to make rational sense of Rory's lack of response.

"Fantasizing is a harsh term," Rory said, gracelessly dodging the question.

"There is nothing in anyone's history to suggest that the term 'fantasizing' is a harsh term," Lorelai said, somewhat frustrated.

"There is in mine. I was thinking. Since when are you telepathic?" Rory said doubtfully. She walked ahead marginally, just enough to know that she was bothering Lorelai. Lorelai moved to catch up.

"Just call me Miss Cleo." Rory slowed her gait again so she could draw level with her mother. She sighed, trying to find the nerve to explain. Lorelai watched expectantly as she caught up and walked along side, studying Rory and narrowly avoiding a run-in with a lamppost.

"Well…," she sighed again, unable to compile the words tastefully. "I was thinking about yesterday, and what happened after we left you to buy the candy," she tried, hopeful that her mother's morbid curiosity with her loss of innocence was satiated.

"And? Is there something I should know about, because I swear, if the kid did something I'll go over there and kill him with the thing Patrick Swazye uses in Road House, you know, the throat thing?" Lorelai said, dead set on the verge of a rant.

"No, nothing bad. And if you ripped out his throat there may be judicial repercussions." She slowed to a stop at the corner before the diner, all too aware that she wasn't going to be able to discuss the subject with Lorelai once they entered. Fidgeting with the hem of her skirt as she was so prone to do, Rory suddenly looked up and tried to be dead honest. "He told me he loved me."

Lorelai felt like somebody had smacked her on the back, her internal guessing game being totally shot down. Her eyes bugged slightly at her daughter, who now was fighting her urge to grin like an idiot.

Instantly trying to find a reason Jess may have not been totally, honest, Lorelai began to move side to side, coming up with other words. _What rhymes with love? Um? Glove? Dirty,_ Lorelai thought as she tried painstakingly to make herself an excuse.

"How did he say it?" she finally came up with.

"What do you mean? Contextually, tone of voice, placement of feet, what're you asking, mom?" Rory asked, smiling a little. She knew the answers to all of those too.

"Like, did he just come out and say it or was there build-up to it, or did he answer you?" Lorelai said anxiously, dreading every second of the conversation and its destination.

Rory started to fidget again, masking her smile unsuccessfully. "I said it first, and he looked so shocked mom. He looked like the happiest little kid on earth. He looked like a four year old who's neighbor had just handed him a twenty dollar bill and a bag of M&M's," Rory said, smiling.

Lorelai looked at her and smirked at her daughter's reaction. As powerfully as she felt compelled to wring Jess's neck, she knew that the demeanor and happiness that Rory was carrying with her right now was solely from him.

Rory look Lorelai's smile as good and opened her mouth, poised to continue. "No! That's fine! I don't need to know more right now! You can tell me later, when I have liquor in my system. It's not a good idea to tell me now," Lorelai said, gently nudging them across the street and into the diner. Rory smiled.

xxx

Jess awoke that morning, stretching like a cat and running a hand through his hair which was an absolute atrocity. Still trying to bring himself awake, Luke knocked. Jess grunted in acceptance and Luke walked in, fully dressed.

"I'm gonna need you down here for a little while this morning. It's Monday and the Gilmores will be in here, without coffee. Just thought I'd warn you. Five minutes," he said, throwing a pair of jeans at Jess as he walked out of the room.

Jess groaned and fell back onto his bed, covering his face with the pants, hoping that Monday would dissipate into Friday and he could at least have the prospect of a weekend to look forward to. Instead he rose from the bed, scowling as he walked into the bathroom, scoured his teeth, then pulled on the jeans and walked over to his dresser, searching for a t-shirt. He was humming and nodding his head to a tune in his head and he heard the door inch open.

"Luke, I said I'd be down in a second, keep your pants on," he said without looking up to see the person who was behind the door.

"If you're mistaking me for Luke, we're gonna have to get your eyes checked or I may smack you," Rory said, entering the room and closing the door behind her. Jess, surprised at who had come in, looked up, shocked at first. She was smirking at him and his early morning state. He was yet to change the state of his hair and was barely conscious.

Thankful that he had brushed his teeth, he walked over to her and gave her a quick kiss before pulling a black t-shirt on and closing the dresser. Jess picked up a comb and attempted to put right his hair before reaching, hopeless, for the gel and attacking his hair.

Rory watched this, laughing as she saw him give up on the comb. He looked over at her with an eyebrow raised as he finished, wiping his hands the rag.

"I'll try not to mistake you for Luke again. You've been up here a lot lately, your mom doesn't have anything particularly malevolent to say about me these days or do you pull a Mission Impossible and sneak up here unnoticed?" he asked, still looking in the mirror, being sure that his hair was perfected the way he did.

"Actually, the spiteful comments have lessened exponentially. Luke sent me up here to make sure that you were actually awake and getting ready. My mom of course complained but I think Luke distracted her. I ran up here."

"So there's no way to be sure. Your mother could be outside the door listening right now. Just to be sure," Jess said as he opened the door slightly, looked out, smiled, and pulled his head back in. He smirked at Rory and she pulled his head down and planted a kiss on him that soon grew throughout his whole body into little florets that made every touch seem glorious.

He responded, wrapping his arms around her waist. She released his mouth from the kiss and smiled at him.

"_This _is what my mother is worried about," she said while he touched their foreheads.

"Come again?"

"The whole walk over this morning she was antagonizing me about what I was thinking about and when I told her I think she would've been better off ignorant."

"What exactly did you tell her?" Jess said, confused.

"That…what we said yesterday…outside of the diner." She sighed. "Don't you remember?" Jess pretended to think about it for a minute and Rory reached to smack his arm. He laughed and nodded at her, his arm blazing under her touch more than anything. Definitely not stinging from her half-hearted slap.

"I do love you," he said, giving her one of his rare but brilliant smiles, so often hidden in the night, shielded from judgmental eyes and hypercritical sunlight.

She grinned at him again, brightly as well. She was of sunlight at moments like this. That perfect sunlight that doesn't reflect and doesn't beat down. The sort that comes in the early spring and just barely warms your face through the air, the kind that doesn't require any clouds. She was of that sunlight sometimes.

"I thought so," she coyly countered. He narrowed his eyes at her, unsure of the meaning. "I love you too," she admitted, acting as if by force.

xxx

"So I was talking to my mother the other night," Lorelai started, tapping on the counter. "And I guess we absolutely _must_ go to Friday night dinner. So I was thinking that maybe on Saturday you and I could see a movie?" she asked hopeful, looking up at Luke who was beaming totally.

"That would be nice," he managed to say. Lorelai grinned at him and leaned across the counter to kiss him.

"We're gonna get caught," Luke said, breaking the kiss and gesturing toward the curtain.

She followed his glance and shook her head. "Nah," Lorelai said, kissing him again. Luke leaned into the kiss, ignoring the bell coming from the kitchen, signaling a ready order.

"Ahem!" they heard Kirk say. Quickly freeing themselves from their lip-lock, Lorelai turned and Luke readjusted his vision to see Kirk who was sitting down the corner from them, tapping the rim of an empty coffee cup.

"Yeah Kirk?" Luke said, sighing.

"I would just like to inform you that while I support this…coupling, that I have finished my coffee and I would like some more. And I'm somewhat…rubbed the wrong way by the fraternizing," he said, gesturing timidly at their condition.

"You want more coffee Kirk?" Luke asked, reaching behind him for the pot. Before Kirk could answer one way or the other, Luke was filling his cup and turning around to receive the waiting order.

"Thanks Luke," Kirk said to himself as he sipped it absently. Lorelai smiled and returned to her waffle that had since been forgotten about.

Jess meanwhile had abruptly stumbled past the curtain into the diner, shocked.

"Would you stop pushing me?" he said as Rory gracefully descended the stairs and came to stand before him as he rubbed his shoulder. She grinned mischievously at him and then acknowledged her mother with another smile, this one of naïveté.

"What're you talking about? I would _never_ push you down the stairs," Rory said as she sat next to her mother and looked around for Luke, ready to order.

"I can distinctly remember one occasion where you pushed me down those stairs, and I'm pretty sure you told me something along the lines of 'tough shit'," Jess said as he came before her.

"I'll have pancakes," she said, ignorant to his ramblings. He rolled his eyes and went to give Caesar the order.

"Were you kissing? Did you make sure that he brushed his teeth?" Lorelai asked with her nose wrinkled, drawing on her coffee. Rory widened her eyes supernaturally and went to finish the coffee that she had forgotten about. As she finished her sip the pancakes were put in front of her and smiled at Jess appreciatively.

"So I was thinking," Rory said, swallowing. "Lane was saying that the band doesn't have anywhere to practice and they'd really appreciate a space that nobody was using that could fit all of their equipment. And I had an idea," Rory said to Lorelai.

"Uh huh."

"Maybe we could let them use the garage?" she said hopefully.

"Sure. How're we going to get all of the junk out of it?" Lorelai countered.

"See, that's the beauty of having boyfriends. They usually are strong, and have free time that they don't mind doing favors for their girlfriends during," she said, smiling.

"That would be so fun to watch them do," Lorelai said, grinning as she finished her waffle and checked her watch. "You should get going, I'll see you for dinner." Rory shoved the rest of her pancake into her mouth and grabbed her backpack, starting for the door.

"Bye Jess!" she said as she walked by, kissing his cheek and opening the door.

"Love you," Jess smiled as she walked out the door. Luke stopped moving and stared at him, hand on hip.

"'Scuse me?" Jess smirked and replaced the coffee cup.

xxx

"I went out with Jamie again," Paris said, hiding her smile without victory. Rory jumped at her voice coming from beside her, beyond her peripheral vision.

"Wow, you really have that sneaky thing going on. It's like you're born to be a politician," Rory said, closing her locker door and starting down the hallway with Paris to their Lit class.

"He took me to dinner and we talked some more," she said again, ignoring Rory's comment.

"How was that?"

"Really, really good. He said his family is really excited to meet me."

"Paris! That's amazing," Rory said, encouraging.

"How're things with Jess going, after what happened and everything," Paris wondered, stonily avoiding the words. Sometimes she thought before she spoke.

"They're _so _good," Rory gushed, not realizing who she was speaking to. She was too thrilled with what was happening to care that Paris wouldn't really care.

"Too good?" Paris asked as they stopped outside the door to the classroom, Paris raising an eyebrow. Louise and Madeline chose this moment to make their appearances in the presence of Paris and Rory and sauntered up beside them.

"What's too good?" Madeline asked.

"Rory's relationship," Paris said, pleased to have an audience.

"There's no way for things to be _too_ good in a relationship," Louise said knowingly to Rory, placing a hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

"Things are perfect the way they are," Rory said to the three.

"You were sounding awfully dreamy when you said it before," Paris said.

"Well, it was the mood. I had a good morning, things have been really good lately. I think that's license to be 'dreamy'," Rory said, stepping side to side as if uncomfortable.

"Good morning? Jesus, nobody has a good morning around here," Louise said.

"What do you mean?" Rory asked. Louise gestured to Madeline's wincing at every word and then looked at Louise again, questioning.

"Well, we sort of had a small, impromptu Halloween get-together last night," Louise started.

"That ended with a fifth of Vodka somehow missing and Madeline almost drowning in the punch bowl," Paris finished, rolling her eyes and pulling her books to her chest.

"I didn't know it was spiked," Madeline said, now holding the bridge of her nose and squeezing her eyes shut.

"It was a wee-bit tragic at the time," Louise said.

"What was tragic was that after she discovered the empty bottle of Belvedere, she kept drinking it," said Paris.

"So, bottom line is, bad party?" Rory tried.

"No, great party. Bad morning," Louise said. Madeline nodded pensively and she and Louise walked into the room. Paris and Rory exchanged a look and entered the room behind them.

xxx

Rory walked into the diner to meet her mother that afternoon after school, her backpack still in tow. She smiled from the mafia table and Rory walked over happily.

"Hi," she said as she sat in the chair and picked up her mother's coffee cup.

"Are we ready to set, 'Make them clean them clean the garage' in action?" Lorelai asked excitedly. Rory widened her eyes.

"Oh my gosh! I had totally forgotten! I have to get my wits about me. Can I have a second to plan my seduction?" she asked frantically.

"Of course! But be swift grasshopper, we have to catch them while they're still confused. Boys tend to have a longer confusion phase, but we must still be swift. For we never know when they'll get smart," Lorelai said, sage-like. Rory nodded and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and composing herself.

"Should I fix my hair?"

"It probably wouldn't hurt to have it bouncing and behaving in this circumstance." Rory nodded brusquely and took it out of the ponytail, letting it fall around her shoulders. She then looked down at her outfit and wrinkled her nose at her mom.

Lorelai studied her. "Lose the sweater-vest." Rory pulled the vest over her head and shoved it into her backpack.

_Meanwhile, across the diner…_

"What do you think they're talking about?" Luke asked Jess illicitly.

"Same thing they always talk about," Jess whispered hoarsely. "Trying to wrangle us into bed." Luke blushed about thirty different shades of purple and Jess smiled.

"Jess," Luke said, uncomfortable. Jess watched as Rory let down her hair and swallowed.

"I have the feeling that this isn't going to end well," he said while he continued to watch, mesmerized.

"Lorelai's been acting especially nice since she got in here, and I can think of no reason for that." He saw Lorelai contemplate and then saw Rory remove the sweater.

"They want something," Jess said, nodding while trying to erase the images in his head before they became apparent in his eyes.

"Something we don't want to typically do," Luke said, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding slowly.

"We're goners," Jess said, positive.

"Oh yeah," Luke agreed. They saw Rory turn around and smile in their direction, Lorelai waving gently. They both stood and walked over, leaning across the counter and blinking innocently.

"Whatever it is, fine. I'm not going to let this go any further," Jess said, throwing his hands up in surrender.

Lorelai smiled at Rory. "I kind of thought that might be your answer," Rory said, smiling at him appreciatively. He rolled his eyes and walked into the storeroom, defeated.

**Sorry it took so long! Concentration for me has been few and far between. Expect the next chapter at the end of the month, I have final exams coming up and the only word I honestly remember in French right now is potato.**


	3. Stand By Me

**A/N-Again, sorry that this is late in coming. Between finals and my Sweet Sixteen, it's been hard to buy time and where I can find it, I've had to study, plan, etc. (BTW-I had a total brain lapse and meant to write pomme de terre in place of "potato" in the last chapter, when I said something about French at the end. Sorry about my temporary insanity, lol)**

**This chapter is going to be occurring in a Friday Night dinner, but the time frame will open up a lot more in the next few chapters. I have most of this story planned out on paper and what isn't there is all in my mind. I can't say for sure, but this MIGHT be longer than 15 chapters. Don't get your hopes up, it's just a possibility. **

**I want to cast out a blanket thank you! The response again was overwhelming. I love you all!**

**xh4z3L3y3sx-Good to hear from you! I love Please Don't Cry, and am planning on reading Mrs. Mariano again soon. It's been a long time since I've gotten to read new fics and yours is definitely promising! Keep it up!**

**Nicolle-I know I already sent you a message telling you so, but I cannot properly express how I appreciate your feedback. You are always so extensive and flattering. Not to mention constructive. So thanks a bazillion!**

**Kat-Ahahaha, well, I hope that I continue to bring up your bad days, apparently especially those that concern Mrs. Christie. I have a similar teacher whose name is Dewolf (actually, her son is the lead guitarist of Taproot) and I totally understand the teacher laziness/stupidity/general annoyingness. Glad you're still reading!**

**Jade-Tessier-I actually probably won't end up in this story just because I want this to be the build-up to Yale. I'll probably have a 7 or 8 chapter story that sort of overviews the events in the summer leading up to Yale and then I'll recap all the happenings from FTBOMH. It's confusing, but it'll all come together. I promise, this is far from abandoned. **

**Thanks as always to miloluver(I hope I ace my finals too! I'll post when I know, lol), sanfrangiantsfan, gottalovethegilmores, Kylie1403(glad I'm back too!), just hidden(I hoped someone would catch those lines :D), nessquik13(I loved that review!), music4mysoul, and demersal. **

**Again, if I owned Gilmore Girls, I'd have to erase the last two or three seasons from everyone's memory and start from scratch. Alas, I do not and you remember what happened (grrr, sort of). Anyway, rambling, here it is, chapter 3!**

"Please tell me that I don't have to go," Lorelai groaned as she and Rory exited the house and went for the Jeep, dressed up and dragging their feet for what would be their first Emily and Richard Friday night dinner since either had begun dating again or Liz had died. It was built up in both of their minds that it would be utterly terrifying.

"You have to go," Rory said, matter of fact. "If I have to go, you have to go."

Lorelai opened the door and looked over the hood at Rory. "What if I say you don't have to go?"

"I still have an obligation to attend. We managed to skip out on two of these. It won't kill us to sit with your parents for two hours while they harangue us incessantly as to our absence," Rory said, buckling into the seat and Lorelai sitting like a petulant child, arms across her chest and a scowl affixed to her features.

Lorelai grimaced to add effect. "That sounds like reason to attend to you?" she said, doubt dripping off of every word.

"It sounds like if you don't start the car two minutes ago we're going to be late and it'll add to the haranguing," Rory said, showing her mother her watch. Lorelai groaned again and started the car, pulling out of the driveway.

"I hate going to these. Sincerely," Lorelai said.

"Channeling Stand By Me now are we?" Rory asked, grinning.

"Jerry O'Connell at his finest," Lorelai agreed.

"Not to mention River Phoenix," Rory also complied, reminiscing on her first crush.

"You do realize that when he died, you were eight years old, right?" Lorelai confirmed, looking at her daughter questioningly.

"Yeah, I looked it up one day a few summers ago and cried a lot about it. Sincerely," Rory added as an afterthought. Lorelai smiled at her across the seat but Rory was looking out the window, content.

"When that movie came out I was also totally in love with him. Except he fell more easily into my age range, whereas you would've been a minor to him until he was over thirty. Gross," Lorelai over thought.

"And dirty," Rory said, looking at her mother placidly. They sat in sociable silence for a few more minutes before Lorelai noticed that they were getting close.

"Question," Lorelai said, interrupting the silence. Rory turned to acknowledge her and raised her eyebrows curiously. "What do we plan to tell my parents about Jess and Luke and the Liz thing?"

_Shit,_ Rory thought, her brain halting as it almost never did. She stalled for another few seconds, trying to form a sentence or a socially acceptable phrase.

"Well, we have to explain why we've been gone for two weeks now, the doctor's note no longer holds water," Rory said, trying to be logical.

"Technically, that doctor's note was forged," Lorelai pointed out.

"Right. But anyway, any water it could've held is no longer valid. Did we even explain our absence last week?" she wondered. Lorelai thought in silence for a few seconds and came up more confused.

"I think I called her from the Inn right after Luke called me and told her that we had to go out of town on an emergency, but I didn't specify." Lorelai sighed.

"The perfect opportunity to be honest," Rory said gently. Lorelai grunted.

"You don't need to be honest with my mother, damn near ever."

"Not true. Eventually she will have to find out, we've already discussed this. She's going to ask me something about _Dean_ tonight and I'm going to have to tell the truth. And she'll ask you something off the wall about getting married and the likelihood of that, and you'll have to mention something about Luke," Rory listed.

"Why does marriage constitute me mentioning Luke?"

"Because she seems to have this idea built up in her head that you're going to get married to him and have your reception at the diner."

"Oh my God," Lorelai said, actually stunned. "My mother was right. I'm dating Luke, I may end up with Luke. Quick! Hide! I think the sky is falling!" she exclaimed as she pulled off the exit ramp into Hartford.

"Oh calm down," Rory said. "If I have to bring up that I broke up with Dean, the Golden Boy and am now going out with the resident Rebel-Without-A-Cause, you have to at least mention that you and Luke have seen each other outside of the diner in good clothes." Rory took a collecting breath. "Now, about Liz," she started.

"Geez," Lorelai said, cringing.

"What?"

"My mom's not exactly, gentle with stuff like death. Especially when it didn't directly concern me but I made myself involved anyway," Lorelai said, pulling into the driveway.

"Then tell her it was me. It was me, after all. I'm the one that insisted we go, I'm the one that actually yelled at Luke. Grandma and Grandpa find it very difficult to be mad at someone as angel-eyed as me. I'd say it's our best bet."

"All right, but if either of us gets shafted in the course of the evening, full blame is shouldered upon your teeny tiny shoulders," Lorelai said goofily. Rory glared at her before getting out of the car and Lorelai rolled her eyes.

"Fine, I'll take a little bit. Only because your shoulders are _really_ teeny tiny." They both walked to the door and Lorelai reached out to ring the doorbell.

"Hi," the maid said, hiding behind the door upon seeing them.

"Let the evisceration begin," Lorelai said as they entered, thanking the maid and giving her their coats.

"Hush you," Rory said as she smoothed out her blue dress and Lorelai huffed impatiently.

"Lorelai, Rory!" Emily Gilmore cried as she came swiftly around the corner. Emily Gilmore's mouth was cut curtly as it always was, imitating the militant line of her skirt. Richard was behind her as well, tall almost as the doorway and sloping downward. He could lower a boom without much force and make you cower with little effort.

"Hi mom, dad," Lorelai said, smiling quickly and forcefully, pleasant on command as she had been told to be many times.

"Hi grandma, hi grandpa," Rory also responded, smiling acutely.

"Come on, let's go into the sitting room," Emily said, shepherding the two into the next room promptly. They entered and the girls sat on the couch stiffly.

"Martini please," Lorelai said as he father walked into the room and poised himself to speak. He looked to Rory and she beamed.

"Soda is fine."

"My aren't we prompt tonight," Emily thought aloud as she sipped her glass of wine and looked at the two, appraisingly happy.

"Well, we want to maximize our time. It's been almost two weeks since we've seen you," Rory explained before her mother could make a smartass remark.

"It's been exactly two weeks. I see that the two of you are feeling better. Was that flu awful?" Emily inquired as Richard handed them their drinks and took a seat beside Emily.

"It was pretty bad," Rory assured, looking up at Lorelai who was scrambling for an answer that was bound to be ludicrous.

"Oh yeah. Just, nasty. We were in bed for a day or two. Luckily, her boyfriend didn't catch it," Lorelai said, grinning an evil grin right at the end. The smile quickly vanished when she understood what she said.

"Dean? Dean didn't get sick? How did only the two of you get sick?" Emily asked. Richard looked on, bored with the conversation. Lorelai and Rory looked at her, in mild fear. Emily squirmed for a second and turned to Richard. "His name is Dean, isn't it? It's not Don or Dave or something is it? I'll feel absolutely dull if I forgot the name of my granddaughter's boyfriend."

"I believe it is Dean, Emily," Richard said, looking up for a moment. He went back to perusing the newspaper he had picked up and Rory opened her mouth to retort, her mother looking on, somewhat in frightened awe.

"Actually," she started, fiddling with her finger nails.

"Did something happen with Dean?" Emily wondered abruptly.

"We broke up. A few weeks ago," Rory said, not willing to look into Emily's forever judgmental gaze.

"You broke up?" Emily said suddenly. Richard moved his paper aside and appraised his granddaughter the look of painful honesty that was clear on her posture. She raised her face to her grandparents, a look of boredom showing in the place of appropriate remorse.

"He broke up with me at the Stars Hollow Dance Marathon," Rory confirmed stonily, trying to be done with the conversation. _I seriously don't even care,_ she thought.

"Dance Marathon?" Richard inquired.

"I have this crazy obsession with winning the 24-hour dance marathon that our town puts on for charity every year," Lorelai quickly explained.

"Ah," Richard confirmed.

"He broke up with you? Who ever heard of such a thing? Is he crazy? Something is wrong with teenage boys these days. Are you terribly heartbroken? You poor thing, you must just feel awful," Emily said, attempting sympathy. Rory tried to appreciate it. She wanted so hard to not get angry with her grandmother for being assumptive. It was in her nature, it wasn't something arguable or changeable about her now.

"Yes, he broke up with me. And I'm fine," Rory said, trying to reassure her, relaxed.

"I shouldn't think you are. It's so terrible to lose a boyfriend, especially your first love," Emily said again, tutting.

"Really grandma, I'm _fine,_" Rory emphasized.

"Lorelai, do you know _why_ this wretched boy did this? I never liked him you know. He was far too…oh what's the word? Indignant," Emily said to Lorelai, the scowl on her face now having a victim.

"Grandma, really, it's not that big of a deal," Rory said, trying to wipe the conversation off the topic list.

"Well, besides that, Lorelai, your memory must just be awful. She doesn't have a boyfriend to get sick now that the simpleton has dumped her," Emily said quietly to Lorelai, as to not upset Rory.

"Actually," Lorelai started.

"I do have a boyfriend grandma," Rory sighed.

"But you just said-," Emily said, confused.

"I know. I'm not with Dean anymore. I'm with someone else."

"Someone else?" Emily restated

"Yes. So is mom actually. It's been a busy few weeks for us," Rory said, trying to redirect focus from the increasingly close point of Jess.

Lorelai openly glared in Rory's direction. Rory gave her a long and pleading look that Lorelai saw and sighed into deference.

"Yeah, I am too," Lorelai finally admitted to Emily and Richard's appraising and hopeful stares.

xxx

Approximately thirty minutes later, the Gilmores were sitting at the dinner table, in a pregnant silence. Richard and Emily were sitting curtly at either end of the table, feeling either painfully uninformed or bored with the behaviorisms of the evening. Emily sat with her mouth in a small, short, straight line across her face and Richard with a somewhat disapproving frown on his.

"Do you think I'm weird?" Lorelai asked across the table to Rory, who was poking at her asparagus, absently. She saw her eyes light up at the realization that they were going to recite movie lines and perked up.

"Yeah, definitely," she said casually, putting a piece of chicken in her mouth. Emily watched by in horror, completely confused and utterly appalled.

"No seriously, am I weird?" Lorelai said, beaming at Rory and on the edge of laughing at her response. It had taken them years to condition their recitation skills to a point of complete flippancy.

"Yeah, but so what? Everyone's weird," Rory said, shrugging and cutting her asparagus into polite, ladylike sized pieces. Rory looked up from her performance to see her mother smirking mischievously and Emily's eyes in a blind rage. Rory quickly mimicked her mother by wiping the smile off of her face and returning to their food. Richard seemed unfazed.

"What are you two talking about?" Emily said tersely.

"It's a line mom, from a movie that Rory and I watch way too much. It was supposed to be a conversation starter. Like most things this evening, it's been shot to hell and turned into an argument, but its intention was to lighten the mood by mocking me. Sorry if I offended," Lorelai said, unsmiling and making random moments of eye contact with her mother.

"Really Lorelai, you have to inform people when you plan to recite lines from a movie that the rest of us haven't seen," Emily said, as if it made perfect sense.

"'Kay mom," Lorelai said, returning to her food and glancing at an uncomfortable Rory.

"What's less understandable is how you still haven't exactly informed us as to the situation we left unfinished in the living room. Who are you two dating now exactly?" Emily said, trying to be happy but coming off as saccharine faux.

"Emily, is this dinner talk?" Richard finally interrupted, speaking around a bite of his potato.

"This is dinner, I am speaking, so yes, this is dinner talk, Richard," Emily said across the table, annoyed. "So, tell me." Rory looked to her mother and could see fear bubbling into the surface of her eyes and words frantically spinning around in her head, threatening to come out of her mouth. Rory knew that this was also mirrored in her, but the threatening words were harder to pick up on.

Lorelai, naturally was the first to open her mouth. Shockingly, what came out of it was a peace offering. "All right, here's the deal mom. You're going to be disappointed in both of us and we know this for a fact. And we originally had decided that honesty was the best policy despite my disposition to discretion, so before we tell you, you have to promise me that you won't judge us or freak out. Or demand that you meet them."

"Deal."

"Swear?"

"I swear."

"On the DAR?"

"Lorelai-," Emily started.

"On the DAR!"

"Fine, on the DAR. They're going to kick me out for this I hope you realize."

"Swear on every single piece of hundred year old furniture that you own but can't use?"

"Honestly Lorelai."

"I could just as easily keep my mouth shut."

Emily put up her hand. "Fine, I promise." Lorelai took a breath and looked at Rory.

"I suggest you go first. Yours is the shocker, mine will seem natural in comparison," Lorelai said to her as Rory squirmed.

"Yours is natural to begin with! Not fair!"

"Take it or leave it. I could always tell her and embellish. You however, will smooth the wrinkles until she meets him which will give everyone a false sense of security that we love so dearly," Lorelai said.

Rory openly sighed at her mother and looked at her grandparents, both of whom had put down their forks and were watching with the same level of fascination that one watches a car wreck. You don't really want to see it and you know that you'll be bothered what you see. The correct term would probably be morbid curiosity.

"I'm seeing Jess, Luke's nephew." The room drew in a sigh as the words fell from Rory's lips like demons from the mouths of angels in the eyes and ears of the elders in the room. Lorelai almost smiled, seeing Rory grow up or grow out of her shell. It was scary and on one hand she held the offhand hope that it would never happen, but she accepted it nonetheless.

Emily looked to Richard and Richard looked to Emily, hoping for a sign or confirmation of the words. They found neither in either of them so they reaffixed their lines of vision into Rory's direction.

"Jess?" Emily finally uttered.

"Yes, Jess Mariano," Rory clarified like she knew she would. Emily looked to Lorelai while Richard, defeated, returned to his food.

"Isn't Jess the one that wrecked her car and broke her wrist?"

"Fractured," Rory and Lorelai said simultaneously, both rooting for Jess this time. They looked to one another pleadingly.

"You're dating the boy that broke you and the car _Dean_ gave to you?"

"Yes." Emily turned to Lorelai, acquiescent with Rory's response.

"What about you?" Emily said, sounding exhausted with the information she had already received and regretted.

"Luke." Emily just stared and went back to her food.

xxx

"I think she was shell-shocked," Rory said to her mother, trying to lighten the black-grey mood that had been hanging heavy since they entered the Gilmore Mansion and followed them into the car and on the highway back to Stars Hollow.

"She was definitely quiet the rest of the night. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a panicky and furious message on the machine when we get home," Lorelai said, not amused.

Rory was uncomfortable again. She had been all night. She was an odd number of moments when she was away from Jess and his arms that wrapped around her like safe July evenings while she chased the surprise sunspots on the floor and listened to her mother's music. She was uncomfortable like wet mornings in January. Sometimes with Jess she felt free as August rain, falling idly on his lips and killing the weight of the air around them.

"She'll have to get over it, it's not like her opinion is going to change our relationships. We see them once a week if that," Rory said, attempting sensibility. Lorelai just looked at her with a glare that only could say, "dream on," and turned her focus back to the road ahead.

"Emily will haunt us forever, and without good intentions. She never means well because she doesn't get it." Rory sighed.

"We had no choice but to be honest with them. We both know that them finding something out is only a matter of time." Lorelai looked annoyed at the idea of Rory's unwavering honesty and kept focusing on the road.

"I guess," Lorelai said, dejected. Rory turned to her mother in a last-ditch effort to restore lightness.

"We could always go home and watch Stand By Me again." Lorelai smiled.

"Can I repeat every single line and sometimes even recite along?"

"Of course."

"I know there's a reason I don't let them have you!"

**No Jess this chapter :(. I promise he'll be in the next one a lot, but I needed time to channel all of this character interaction. Reviews? (I'm sixteen! My birthday was on Tuesday! Yay me!)**


	4. Lovely, Lovely Burns

**A/N-Sorry that this is taking me a while! The chapters have been getting progressively longer and my time has been getting progressively smaller in its availability. Hence, the shout-outs will have to wait until next time :(. **

**As I said, in this chapter there will definitely be some Jess action. Sorry about the last chapter, I was getting long-winded and exhausted. Channeling Emily and Richard is not my favorite feat and I had to accomplish it anyway. **

**I said last time that this MIGHT be longer, but we'll see. I'm still outlining as I go. It'll be near the same size as FTBOMH, give or take a chapter. Thanks for all the Birthday well-wishes! It was very good indeed!**

**Disclaimer (I forget these and I'm constantly living in a state of blind panic because of it), I don't own this show, any of the characters, or anything else that involves actors and television. I am simply the owner of a Coach purse and a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder. That is all.**

"Are you going to start getting ready or am I going to have to make you?" Rory asked as Lorelai flipped through another catalogue.

Lorelai shrugged. "I work better under pressure. If I try to put on mascara when I still have an hour to get ready I either poke myself in the eye with the wand or it gets clumpy and I have to start over."

"What if you poke yourself in the eye because you're rushing and you end up being late? What are you supposed to do then, huh?" Rory asked, trying to prompt her mother off the couch.

"You're being a little bit pushy, is someone excited for her in-house date that her mother for no reason in her sane mind allowed?" Lorelai asked as she looked over the magazine at her daughter who was bouncing in her socks. She was dressed in a short sleeve, red polo shirt and jeans and was already ready for Lorelai to leave.

"Yes, I'm excited. _But_, I also want you to be ready on time so you don't miss the movie trivia before the previews that you and I get in a fight about every time we see a movie. Luke deserves to see you jump up and down in your seat when you get the same five questions right," Rory said, gesturing uncontrollably in anticipation.

Lorelai smiled at Rory and got up, walking toward the stairs. "You are an evil, evil child," Lorelai said as she slowly ascended the stairs. "If I poke myself in the eye, it's your fault."

"Just do me a favor and don't do it on purpose," Rory said as she straightened the couch from where Lorelai had been sitting and ran to the hall mirror again to check her hair. The anticipation filled her with a sense of perfection but she checked to make sure it maintained. She glowed casually but it was lost to her in the mirror. It scared Lorelai. She knew that glow, that glow of agonizing anticipation that filled your bones and made them feel incomplete until you were with the one you were anticipating. She knew that feeling all-too well. That feeling was the feeling that followed her from the rim of her parent's crystal whiskey glasses, to the stairs of her parent's house, to the doorknob of her bedroom door, to the lock on her balcony, to the conception of her daughter.

Lorelai applied her makeup methodically and immaculately, and that glow that Rory was so accustomed to for the evening seemed to rub off on her and climb up her legs and make her complete as it changed the chemical makeup of her body until she felt simply halved with the expectation. And it felt _so _exquisite that she almost wanted to stay home.

Rory, meanwhile downstairs, was nervously tapping her foot against the coffee table as she read Cat's Cradle for the nine millionth time. Vonnegut never got old in her mind. There were only so many things you could pull from the demise of the earth the first time around.

She wished absently that she could concentrate, but expectancy had taken her over and she hummed unnoticeably while she watched her watch tick away the seconds. Defeated with the sluggishness of time, she returned to her book, an almost failed attempt at calm.

"Do I look okay?" Lorelai asked fifty minutes later, descending the stairs in jeans and a black button down shirt. Rory looked up from the final pages of her book, taken with visions of ice-nine and the sky looking full of snakes as tornadoes overtook San Lorenzo and then the entirety of the world.

Lorelai had her hair done curly and didn't look as if she had recently poked herself in the eye with a mascara wand, so Rory trusted that everything had gone fine. She smiled at her mother encouragingly.

"Perfect," Rory said as she closed the book, in vague acceptance that she knew how it ended. It was a little sad, the way that Bokonon would sit on the side of the road and end his book, almost sad the way it was every time she finished a book. A certain optimistic melancholy.

"You're _reading_? That's how you prep for a hot date, reading the world's most confusing book?" Lorelai said as she fidgeted with the collar of her shirt and looked at her daughter doubtingly.

Rory rolled her eyes in indignation. "It's not that hot of a date. I actually get the house to myself for a period of time and he's going to come over, eat way too much of Luke's food, watch movies, and probably fall asleep," Rory said, standing up and looking at her mother reasonably.

"There better be some full on clothed-ness if I find you two asleep in the same room. Or other rooms." Lorelai looked pleadingly at Rory for a moment. "Please do not remove any clothing tonight."

"Without replacing it?" Rory tried to clarify.

"Just…generally," Lorelai managed to blurt out.

"Mom, what if I want to change into pajamas?" Rory said, hand on hips, confused.

"Wait until I get home," Lorelai commanded as she rooted around in her purse for her lipstick.

"What if you don't come home tonight? I can't sleep in jeans," Rory pointed out while reaching down on the coffee table and walking across the room to hand her mother the tube of lipstick that she had left there.

Lorelai took the lipstick and looked at her daughter with lowered eyebrows. "Dirty."

"Mom."

"Use good judgment," Lorelai said. They both stood there, staring one another down and trying to define 'good judgment'. The doorbell rang and Rory followed Lorelai to the door, standing off to the side and behind her as she swung open the door.

Behind the door, Luke was standing closest to the door, with Jess hanging back with bags in his hands. Luke walked in and gave Lorelai a sweet but noncommittal kiss on the cheek and Lorelai returned it. Jess and Rory exchanged a smile and then grimaced.

"Ready?" Luke asked as he waved subconsciously to Rory.

"I am," Lorelai said, grabbing up her purse and linking arms with Luke.

"We will call to tell you when we will be back," Lorelai said as they walked toward the door. "Keep it clean."

Luke looked at the teenagers sternly. "No joke."

Jess shrugged and walked toward the door. "We will if you will."

Luke and Lorelai glared. "Yeah, right," Lorelai said and smiled sweetly as she closed the door and walked off the porch with Luke.

Jess smiled at Rory and peaked out the window to make sure that Luke and Lorelai were far enough away from the house to constitute their date as actually beginning. He confirmed their absence and leaned in to kiss Rory who responded by intensifying the kiss my lifting her arms to his neck and wrapping them around it tenderly.

This, was that mind-bending comfort that she had in his arms.

Even though both of his arms were at his sides holding the bags he had brought over.

"Hi," she said once they broke the kiss, smiling sweetly at him. He gave her one of his rare, bright smiles that created for her, reason to never even be able to imagine loneliness as palpable as the loneliness she knew she felt before him. With or without Dean.

"Hi," he responded. He kissed her nose gently once and then walked into the kitchen to deposit the bags. "I brought food from Luke's, that's still what we want, right?"

"Unless you've changed your mind about Indian food, yes," Rory said, grinning appreciatively and bringing down a few plates, placing them on the table among the take-out boxes and bags.

"I've already explained to you my standpoint on Indian food. I don't think your mother would like it very much if I had to burn down the house because you had a supernatural craving for garlic gnon."

"I'd be willing to tell her it was my fault," Rory offered as they sat down and began to dig into the boxes. Jess looked at her doubtfully and she shrugged.

"What movies are you forcing me to watch?" Jess asked after a few minutes of eating.

Rory smiled diabolically. "It's a surprise," she said around a French fry.

"Rory," Jess whined pathetically, reaching over and putting a hand persuasively on her thigh. She kept smiling and kissed him.

xxx

"_Please_ say I get to choose the movie," Lorelai pleaded as they walked into the theater. Luke looked at her again like she was crazy and she smiled sweetly, squeezing his hand and then resorting to full-pouting.

"Are you going to take me to some Jennifer Lopez, completely mockable, almost makes me want to puke, sort of movie?" Luke said, complaining.

Lorelai grinned. "Nope."

"Then what?"

"Finding. Nemo," she said smilingly. Luke blinked at her a few times, trying to be sure he heard her correctly.

"The cartoon?" Luke sputtered. Lorelai nodded. He sighed. "Let's go," he said, guiding them toward the ticket counter. Luke paid and he let Lorelai stock up on popcorn and Sour Patch Kids, much to his dismay. They entered the theater, Luke in an immediate state of panic at the site of nearly every ten-year-old from the greater Stars Hollow area.

"Are you going to start hyperventilating?" Lorelai asked, leaning toward him from her seat. Luke was sitting there, staring straight ahead, trying to think of a happy place.

"Lorelai."

"I just need to know how fast I need to eat this popcorn," she said calmly. Luke paused and sighed.

"Did you know there were this many kids in town?" he asked frantically. Lorelai looked around observantly.

"Well, apparently a couple of couples around here were humping like bunnies for a 15-month period, but I'd say it's not a far cry from what it's usually at." She looked back at Luke and smiled at him, reassuringly. "I really appreciate this if it makes you feel any better," she said. They were seated in a dark corner of the theater. Lorelai always knew good date seats.

"A little bit," Luke said, almost smiling. They met halfway across the seat and their lips touched in the sort of slow burn that killed them both a little bit and then brought them back up to life.

"Do you think this night will be better _now_?" Lorelai asked, her face still close to his. Luke nodded and took her lips for another slow-burning kiss.

xxx

"It took you _two _tries to catch on to the beginning of Cat's Cradle linking to the end?" Jess said incredulously to Rory, who was facing him on the couch, sitting cross legged and smiling, almost embarrassed.

"The first time I read it, I was twelve. I didn't pick it up again until I was fourteen. I had forgotten what happened!" she pleaded, moving in her seat a little bit.

"How can you let Vonnegut sit on a shelf for two years? That's almost blasphemous," he said, matter of fact.

"I read other stuff between that," she reasoned, moving closer and letting him wrap and arm around her back, pulling them closer. She felt the meaning of their conversation beginning to mean less and less with the more they touched and touched.

"Like what?" he wondered, feeling his soul warming and the stiff armor that he threw over his heart beginning to melt and break as her heartbreaking eyes and skin and hair and smile tore into his skin.

"I read Breakfast of Champions, and Slaughterhouse-Five," she said, proud of herself but quieting as she felt the heat radiating off of Jess's body. She knew of the fire that burned within Jess. A fire that burned demons. A fire that killed his evils. A fire that sometimes couldn't work as fast as the rate that the demons entered him. She saw that fire and she felt that fire and she could absently feel all the burns from where they had touched and it only made her want to get burned again. That sweet, incredible burn that sticks in your skin and never leaves. The kind of burn that warms your soul and makes you beg for more. It was a lovely, lovely fire.

"Slaughterhouse-Five has to be one of the best books ever written," Jess pointed out.

"Billy Pilgrim in his blue toga and golden boots, then getting abducted by aliens and put into a human zoo with a movie star. That surely beats out Ayn Rand," Rory said, doubtfully.

Jess looked at her with wide eyes and Rory rethought.

"Yeah, it kind of does," she said, laughing. He smiled at her and then lifted her so that she was straddling his lap, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory running idly in the background. It had been forgotten the moment Jess complained and they started off on one of those long running, irreverently brilliant tangents that the two of them were prone to forming.

They felt the moments passing by as they looked at one another, the thoughts of Billy Pilgrim and Ayn Rand floating out of their heads as their passionate burns became deeper and more severe.

Rory smiled at him, at a loss as to what to do with her positioning. He rolled his eyes and smiled back at her, absolutely enamored of her naïveté. Without recognition of the movements that were becoming so automatic and beautiful, their lips touched and those fires that they both felt were completely torched again.

Jess moved to put his hands on Rory's back and pull her closer, feeling the world around him open up and go silent. Then fall back into him and her and sweet, sweet lips, synching tongues, eyes, hair, jaw lines, earlobes, veins in their necks, the scandalous appeal of collar bones and the way they were cut under her thin, ivory skin. He felt it all and smelled it all and kissed it all.

She felt the weight of herself on him, the effect that she could have on the fierceness of his reaches toward her soul. She felt her arms around his back, her fingers in his incredibly perfect hair, her eyes sometimes on that immaculate olive of the skin just below his ear, the slender strength of his neck. She heard the quiet but demanding breaths from his mouth when it left her skin, her lips. She heard her blood pounding through her ears, little sounds that shocked her falling from her occupied lips, helpless breaths between touches. More than anything, she felt a tingling, burning sensation, blazing and screaming from every nerve ending.

It was exquisite.

xxx

"I told you it wouldn't be that bad," Lorelai said, smiling like a fool.

"Be quiet."

"You liked Finding Nemo. I can see it on the special's bored tomorrow. 'Luke has stopped serving any fish products due to his newfound love for Finding Nemo'," Lorelai said, laughingly as he nudged her.

"If that ends up on the special's board tomorrow, one, you're going to find yourself single, and two, you'll have to rewrite the omelet thing," Luke said. He smiled at her and Lorelai snuggled closer to his jacket. They reached the front of the diner and they stood, awkward for a moment outside its locked door.

"You want coffee?" he said slowly.

"Sure," she said, shrugging, attempting nonchalance.

"Right, of course you want coffee. Thought I was talking to a _normal _woman for a minute there," he said, getting the key from above the doorframe and unlocking the door. They heard the lonely but ever-present bell as they entered, alerting no one in particular.

"Lots of normal women like coffee," Lorelai countered, removing her jacket and placing it on the coat hook.

"Not many women can drink twenty cups in a twenty-four hour period and not need to be hospitalized," Luke said as he dumped grounds into the coffee maker and pressed the start button. She had taken a seat at the counter, directly in front of the coffee maker and where Luke was now standing.

"Not many women are anything like me," Lorelai said quietly as Luke leaned down on the counter and listened intently. He smiled and there were a few beats of silence between them.

"Listen," he started, pulling back and running a hand over his hair. "I'm not good at saying, or even executing, this sort of thing, but this thing that you and I have going. It's good. And I'm willing to ride this out as long as it's going to take," Luke said slowly, honestly.

Lorelai smiled lazily, absolutely inundated. "Ditto," she managed to utter from under the sheet of happiness that he had thrown over her. She managed to throw in a sip of coffee before the happiness settled into her muscles and took over her actions. Before she knew what she was doing she was kissing Luke and pulling him from around the counter by his collar, taking the kiss with fierceness and adoration.

He could feel her take a hold of his shirt, take a hold of his heart, and effectively dissolve his reason as they both disappeared behind the curtain in a veil of love.

xxx

Rory found herself, laying back on the couch, fighting for her breath, Jess's arms around her admiringly. She came up with a breath and Jess rested on her, pulling them up so that they were both close on the corner of the couch.

"It's probably about time for us to talk about some stuff," Rory said, still fighting for her breath. Jess's stomach went icy at the idea when it first came to him, then reassured himself that Rory's love for him, whether it was boyfriendly or not, was unconditional.

"Okay," he conceded. Rory took in a deep breath to ground herself and spoke.

"You know I love you. And it's clear that we both want something tangible and something that's promising itself to be _amazing_," Rory said, looking at him with sparkling eyes. They sparkled so brilliantly.

Jess nodded, in accord.

"But here's the deal," she started, looking at her lap. Jess lifted her chin and looked her in the eyes.

"Okay," he repeated.

She sighed. "I want to wait to do anything…else, until after graduation," she said, unsure.

Jess nodded. "That sounds about right."

Rory smiled. "I mean, _both _of our graduations. I want you to graduate more than anything Jess. And I don't mean to sound stupid or manipulative, but that's the deal. When we both are graduated from highschool…we can move this along." She sighed again and Jess smiled at her.

"Miss Gilmore," he said, helping them rise from their position on the couch to standing before it. "It has been a truly amazing evening. However, seeing as how your mother will be home soon, I should get going," he said, pointing to the door as he attempted cheesy politeness gradually fell back into normally monosyllabic slang.

Rory nodded and smiled. They walked to the door and Jess put on his jacket, looking at her the entire time. He saw that she was embarrassed, he could read it as easily as Hemingway across her forehead. But he wouldn't let on that he knew.

He leaned in and kissed her again, his hands flanking the sides of her face.

"I'll probably see you in the morning," Jess said as he looked at his watch and let go of her. "It's already almost ten, Luke's probably pissed that Lorelai won't let him go to sleep at nine," Jess said as he descended the porch. He turned around and walked backwards, hands in his pockets.

Rory laughed at him, his post-make-out goofiness completely out of character.

"Bye Jess," she said, moving to close the door but too taken with the image to bring herself to do it.

"Love you," he said, turning around and waving in a more in-character, offhand way.

"Love you too," she responded, closing the door and falling against it. She felt those butterflies start to take their places back where they belonged and Rory went into the kitchen to clean the mess they had made.

Once she had finished cleaning, she went into her room and changed into her black sweat pants and tank top, curling back up on the couch and finishing her finals pages of Cat's Cradle that she had left lonely on the coffee table.

Then she heard the knock at the door.

With panic rising softly, Rory got up slowly and put her book aside, walking silently to the door and picking up an umbrella on the way, brandishing it in the hand that wasn't opening the door.

"Jess?" she asked, squinting.

"Your mother's purse is on the counter and the coffee maker is on, but they're not in the diner. Needless to say, I can't go home," Jess said, entering without ceremony and pacing across the living room, running a hand through his hair.

"That's sincerely disgusting," Rory said, grimacing herself as she closed and locked the door again.

"It could've been worse," Jess said. "I could've not made the connection and gone upstairs. Or inside for that matter," Jess said, stopping and looking at her. "I need to sleep on your couch."

Rory nodded and laughed, going to find the pillows and blankets, assembling him what she thought of as a comfortable bed and what most would look at and think back problem.

"I'm beat," she said, stretching and kissing him good night.

"This'll be okay with your mom?" he said, glancing from her to the couch.

"She has no option but to accept it, I'm pretty sure," Rory said, assured.

"Night," he said, taking another look at the bed and smiling at her.

"Night, Jess," she said, turning out the light and walking into her bedroom.

**(Convenient? Yeah. Dirty? Yeah. Did I need fluff? Yeah. Reviews? Yeah?)**


	5. We Could Just Break a Mirror

**A/N-Thank you everyone for your kind words! My writing has been getting gummed up lately…lots of life stuff happening, you know how it goes. However, I will NOT abandon this story, or this series. It's pretty much the only distraction I have. **

**This chapter was originally supposed to occur the next day, but I already got in my fill of fluffy Jess-in-the-morning, so we'll jump ahead a week and assume that since Luke, while a good guy, is still a guy, so therefore, oblivious nine times out of ten (you'll get it once you read, yes, I'm cryptic, it's my prerogative). **

**This story will have a plot, as well. And it's actually going to make its appearance in this chapter I hope. **

**As usual, my inspiration goes to Kat (Certifiably Insane) and Nicolle (someone5). **

**I don't own it! Don't beat me up!**

It was a Saturday morning in Stars Hollow and instead of the usual to-do down at the diner, Luke, Jess, Lorelai, and Rory were standing outside of the Gilmore's garage, too afraid to open the doors.

"How many years?" Luke asked, leaning over toward Lorelai.

"Rory?" she said, uncertain.

She sighed. "Three or four." Jess shook his head and smirked.

"We could break a mirror and wait until the end of the decade, the bad luck would be worn off by then and we could be sure that this isn't God just smiting us" he suggested, crossing his arms over his chest and trying not to grin.

"Jess," Luke scolded.

"Sorry, serious, got it," he said, affixing a prepackaged scowl to his still amused features. They stood for a few more minutes, all at a loss.

"If we don't do it, it'll never get done," Rory finally said. Jess turned to look at her, the only one that had been able to tear his eyes away from the garage.

"I bet we could hire Kirk," Lorelai said, attempting hopeful. Luke shook his head.

"Not even Kirk is crazy enough to attempt this on his own."

They stood again, silent. Finally, Jess sighed and walked forward, unhitched the doors, and opened them.

The room was stacked, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with every knick-knack known to man.

"Huh," Jess said, stepping back in awe. "It's like Martha Stewart's nightmare."

"It's worse than I thought it would be," Rory gawked. She paused while the others lifted their jaws off the ground and squinted at the contents. "Why do we have that many chairs?"

Lorelai shuffled through her mind and came up dry. "Absolutely no idea."

Luke sighed and walked forward. "Sooner we start, sooner I can stop," he said as he began to drag stuff out into the driveway. He was soon joined by Jess and the girls stood, grinning hysterically.

"You think if we just stand here, they'll notice?" Lorelai asked, leaning over to Rory.

"You yourself said that we never know when boys will get smart, so we should be swift," Rory pointed out.

"Damn. I wish, just once, that men would do me favors that I didn't have to beg for," Lorelai said as they walked forward and sifted through the discarded items.

Rory looked at her. "Since when _don't_ they?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember that time that Luke was living with," she mouthed Rachel, "and he was over _constantly_ fixing things around the house without you asking him?" she pointed out.

"He was doing that to get away from her, not because of my feminine wiles," Lorelai said.

"He could've been, you don't know." Lorelai looked at her and smiled a little to herself as she sorted through a box, conclusively discarding pieces of her past.

"Oh look, Uncle Luke, a fish," Jess said, holding up a stuffed animal. He made it swim before his uncle's face. "Are you gonna name him Nemo? Because that would just be so darn cute," he said.

Luke flushed cerise and took the animal from Jess's hands and threw it back into the box, pointing at him. "You're pushing your luck," he said, seething in embarrassment. Jess openly laughed and the girls stifled similar laughs, Rory covering her mouth with the back of her hand in a very nonchalant, lady-like manner that she adopted after years of living in the judgmental shadow of perfection.

"Oh, come on, wasn't that a little bit funny?" Jess asked Lorelai and Rory. Lorelai nodded and laughed out loud and Rory flushed nervously, looking back to what she was doing.

"I did _not_ like that movie," Luke insisted to the three.

xxx

Two hours, 67 boxes, and four broken nails later, the group was halfway done. Lorelai and Rory had assigned themselves as box checkers to make sure that nothing of value, sentimental or otherwise, was thrown out with old Happy Meal toys and dead clock radios.

Luke and Jess, however, had been recruited as box carriers and were both tense in their backs and mindsets.

"They're trying to kill us, I hope you know that," Jess said as the set down a box that was full of books and bricks from what he could tell.

"I can't imagine why. It's not like they're going to get insurance money if they kill either of us. I'm your beneficiary and for another what, three months, your great-aunt Caroline is mine," Luke said as he took a break and ran his hands over his throbbing arms.

"I have a great-aunt Caroline?" Jess wondered.

"I think so," Luke said, scratching his head. They both stood for a moment, Jess tapping his fingers idly as he yearned for a cigarette. Luke sighed and Jess looked over.

"You okay?" he wondered absently.

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine." Luke paused and exhaled again. "Hey Jess, about the other night. Where did you…stay, exactly?" he wondered, uncomfortable. Jess looked up at him.

"You're only wondering just now where I stayed the night a week ago?" he said, feigning confusion.

"Jess," Luke said.

"I slept on their couch," he said, stacking another box and looking at it simply.

Luke's mind stalled out like an '87 Chevy. "Where?" he attempted at clarification.

Jess rolled his eyes. "_Nothing happened_," he emphasized, gesturing reassuringly.

"Jess!" Luke exclaimed, trying to not catch the attention of Lorelai or Rory. "Does Lorelai know about this?" he wondered, whispering frantically.

"She was fine with it," Jess confirmed, trying to be gentle considering Luke's condition.

Luke sputtered. "She was _fine _with you staying over at her house with her seventeen-year-old daughter?"

"Again, yes, she was fine with it. Do you mind taking this box away from me? I think it's Rory's old books and if she catches me trying to throw them away I'll get in trouble," he said, handing off a huge box into Luke's shocked arms.

xxx

"Are you and Luke doing something tonight?" Rory asked as she arranged another box that had been placed in front of them with nothing more than a grunt and disorder.

Lorelai looked over at him as he dragged more boxes out of the garage. "That depends on if I kill him," she said, frowning sympathetically. She tore her eyes from Luke regretfully to look at her daughter who was scrutinizing the every move of Jess. The way his body flowed under his clothes, the way he'd never seem out of sync with his step.

The way that he could tell she was watching.

"What about you and Jess?" she wondered quietly, trying not to make it obvious that she noticed.

"It depends," she said casually, shrugging and turning to another box.

"On…?" Lorelai said, prompting her forward.

"It just depends," she said carelessly. Lorelai nodded, pretending to understand.

"Uh huh," she said. She finally built up some of the courage and opened her mouth, trying to utter the first few words that would insure that there was no turning back. "So, I never asked, how was your actual date last week?"

Rory felt the world turn under her as she halted entirely.

Her sync, unlike his, was totally, _totally_ off.

"Good," she said, still not looking up. Dare she tell her mother of the exchanged words? She knew that she had no other option. She had to tell Lorelai the arrangement. She was just afraid.

"Just good? Nothing spectacular?"

This was it. She poised herself to answer. "Parts of it were. Hey, mom?" she said, looking up.

"Yeah sweets?" she said, pleased with her surrender.

"I made a decision." She paused and let the silence build. "About sleeping with Jess," she said, barely above a whisper.

It was Lorelai's turn to halt. Upon the words fleeing Rory's lips, the constant, _I'm going to kill him_, that had been running through her head like a ticker on the trading room floor since they had gotten together, was joined by, '_Sleeping with him?' _and '_She's only 17'!_

A fleeting counteractive thought of '_Way to go, madam hypocrite'_ came and went.

"I see," she finally managed. Rory frowned, hoping that her mother's reaction would've been…more. More tragic, more positive, more negative, more catastrophic. More.

Rory motioned for her to continue.

Lorelai was flustered. "Uhh, what exactly did you decide?" she decided on. She gave herself a mental head-slap, instantly regretting the words but needing the answer. It was that bizarre subconscious mind-control. She knew the situation and the wording and the answer would be bad. There were only two explanations, other than subconscious mind-control, that could apply to Lorelai. It had to be either morbid curiosity or plain and simple social stupidity.

Everyone knew that Luke and Jess didn't necessarily need to overhear.

Rory fidgeted, unable to find a way to lower her voice enough to escape the selective hearing of the men, so she gestured into the house with her head and quietly slipped away from the driveway, walking into the kitchen and sitting at the table.

Lorelai followed in, closing the door and taking a seat across from Rory, who was exhaling slowly and tucking her hair behind her ears.

"I told Jess that I wanted to wait until after we both had graduated," Rory said, quickly, trying to get rid of the words before they turned themselves into over-explaining and uncertainty.

Lorelai, however, was an uncertainty-inundated vessel. She felt the bewilderment fill her toes and from there, pick up speed as it ran into her brain and clouded her vision.

_She's my baby! No, no, no, no, no. She didn't just say that she was going to have sex with her boyfriend…in the near future. Ever!_ Lorelai thought, attempting brainwashing. When her brain seemed so submersed in the idea that had only left Rory's lips moments ago, she blinked a few times, clearing the residual clouding of her wit and reasoning, collecting herself.

"How did you come to this conclusion?" she stuttered, crossing her arms over her chest in mock-authority.

Rory widened her eyes slightly at her mother's gathering of wit and slumped back minutely in her chair, rather whitewashed with Lorelai's surrender.

She took a minute, racking her brain. What was her reasoning for waiting? She must've had her wits about her at some point, a weaker, much more un-Rory-like Rory, would've jumped on that train a while ago.

Regardless of inexperience and shyness.

She kept racking that brain of hers. The sex stuff was crammed between Physics finals and Shakespeare's wife's name (Anne Hathaway, thanks much). Sometimes it was laced between quadrilateral equations and "She Walks in Beauty Like the Night." As much as she loved William Blake and Steven Hawking, there was a part of her that needed some space to breathe while she thought about the things she was saying.

Though in their truth, they were total.

She poised herself, grounded in her chair, trying to make her internal fluidity show on the outside. She had a few words, she knew with a little bit of verbal finesse and genetic wit, she could make it work.

"Well, I sort of took two things into account. One, that I wanted-_needed_-Jess to graduate. And two," she stumbled slightly, her voice breaking. "I need insurance that this will work, and I think it lasting that far is as good as I can hope for, so if we're good then," she searched for words again. The ones she had just said tasted thick and like they were distastefully destroying the clandestine quality of her agreement with Jess. "I'd be willing to, if not _actually_ sleep with him, consider it," she said, swallowing down the pregnant silence and let it keep the other lump in her throat company. The one that had formed when Lorelai's eyes lost all emotion.

Lorelai had since, been unable to tear herself away from the internal thoughts she was having. She bounced back and forth between a heated argument with Rory about the merits of sleeping with Jess and how the bad things were taking up an entire scroll of the Torah, and the good things were small and superficial, and the mental picture of nodding like Jeannie and making him disappear.

Sometimes she was Samantha. It was a mood thing.

Finally noticing the silence and intrusive tears in Rory's eyes, Lorelai spoke.

"Wow," she breathed, looking down. "That's one of those talks you hope starts with something about joining a convent," she said, equally breathy but showing signs of improvement. Wit was always a good sign, even if it wasn't particularly extraordinary.

"You always said that I should keep you informed. You can pass judgment on my decision if you feel like you have to, but keep in mind, I'll be 18 by then, and so will he. In all legal senses, you won't be able to tell me that I can't. You can threaten me, but you can't stop it," Rory said quietly, a little bit less than defensive.

Lorelai laughed a short bitter laugh, never letting her eyes leave her lap and the edge of the round, wooden table. "Oh, there are a few ways I can stop it. But I don't think I'd enjoy court or jail very much."

Rory rolled her eyes.

"All I'm saying is that you can tell me I can't live here or that I'm being stupid, but I could've been _way_ worse in this situation. I could've slept with Jess a _long_ time ago. I wasn't ready necessarily, but I could've done it. But I kept you in mind and my promise to keep you informed. This is me keeping you informed," Rory said, not letting the issue drop until Lorelai accepted.

She wasn't changing her mind.

He had taught her that much.

Lorelai sighed a hopeless sigh. There wasn't enough energy to fight time.

No matter how much coffee she begged off of Luke or how late she slept in. She'd never be able to stop the vacuum of time, she'd get behind just trying.

"Rory, you know that I love that you're keeping me informed, but let's face it sweets, it's a little bit shocking the first time you hear it. I mean, you were with Dean for almost two years and-," Lorelai was cut off by Rory.

"And I never even thought about it?" she said, rapidly more annoyed. She shook her head. "You're going to actually base the intentions of my relationship on whether or not I thought about sleeping with Dean? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I didn't _trust_ or think of Dean that way? Maybe, all along, it was _you_ who trusted him with _me_, not me trusting him with myself?" Rory reasoned, speaking loud and clear.

It was stunning.

"Rory, are you kidding me?" Lorelai asked, her voice a little bit shrill and somewhat hurt. "I'm just trying to figure out _why _it is that you grew up so fast!"

It was Rory's turn to laugh bitterly. "I was grown up all along."

Lorelai shook her head, still hurt. "I will not take this. I am accepting your decision, and I appreciate that you told me, but I will not be attacked in my own house by my own daughter. I didn't raise you to talk to me like that," Lorelai said, shaking her head, holding her chin high and almost breaking into tears.

"Mom, this is me communicating to you! This isn't an attack against you! This is me trying to explain to you why this relationship is different. Yes, it is more physical, I won't lie to you. Yes, I would eventually like to have Jess be my first, but it's not going to happen tomorrow! Jess and I have a better, more honest relationship than Dean and I had. I constantly had to lie and manipulate the truth so that he wouldn't go off on me and run the risk of ruining the relationship. With Jess, I know that eventually, he'll get over it and we'll be fine. It's happened time and time again. Before our relationship even. You have to see the difference, mom," Rory said, speaking more mildly as the conversation continued.

Lorelai sat, shell shocked. Again.

She took a deep breath, and aimed to return Rory's argument. "I'm trying so hard not to make it sound to me like this isn't against me, but when your seventeen year old daughter tells you that she wants to sleep with her newly acquired boyfriend, even if it's only eventual, you have some license to freak out about it!" She sighed again. "I will accept this, I promise," Lorelai said, reaching across the table and putting her hand over Rory's. "It may take a little bit of time, but I will accept it. I've already accepted Jess to the point where I let him sleep on my couch with only you here, so, I'd say we're not that far from acceptance," Lorelai said, smiling sadly, apologetic.

Rory relaxed and smiled in return.

It was still a long way to regularity.

xxx

Luke and Jess were working companionably, stacking the last of the boxes before the spot where Lorelai and Rory had previously been working. Luke, finally submissive to the worrying, spoke first.

"Do you have any idea where they went?" he asked Jess.

"Probably inside," he said, bored.

"Them talking in a private place leads me to believe that one of us is in trouble," Luke said, leaning over and looking at the house, as if it held the clue to their absence.

"Either that, or they bailed and are watching a movie on the couch and eating Red Vines," Jess said, cocking his head.

Luke looked at him, eyes squinted. "Did you _study_ them like chimpanzees? Geez," Luke said, walking inside, smiling a little bit to himself, definitely amused. Jess rarely took the time of day, let alone gave it to anybody. Now he was observing their work ethics and eating habits (how they entwined was incomprehensible). Luke was already shocked at much of what Jess was doing.

And while homework was the main one, the fact that he took a serious interest in Rory an her well being was just as paradoxical as Jess being on honor roll.

He could have sworn her heard him say "love you" the other day to make matters more confusing.

Even though he sort of loved it.

"They don't sit in a cage and blink, Luke. She's my girlfriend, it doesn't hurt to occasionally know the patterns of her lifestyle. It'd probably do you some good to follow my example," Jess said, patting Luke on the back as he jogged into the house to find them.

Luke just shook his head.

That happened a lot these days.

**Well? Like? It's a little jumbled. I had to fill some stuff to break 3,000 words, but I hope you like it! Thanksgiving is coming up in the next chapter or so. Can you feel the excitement? **

**Reviews? I lllllooooovvveeee you!**


	6. Poetry in Cocoa, Smiles Like Lightning

**A/N-Not much to say this chapter, I've replied to my lovely reviewers!**

**This chapter will be Thanksgiving. Kind of a filler-like chapter, but I like writing them. **

**  
My name is not Amy Sherman-Palladino.**

In most homes across the greater Hartford area, people were waking up to the smell of turkey and the announcer of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

In Stars Hollow, this was a particularly strict tradition.

Except at the Gilmore's. Like most mornings, they both awoke to the absence of coffee and to the sound of either oinking pigs or the ever-classic "buzz" sound on an alarm clock.

Rory rolled over in her bed, staring at the alarm, still too tired to register why it was making noise or what to do about it. It was all-pervading in her dreams. Those incredible dreams that intruded her consciousness like honeysuckle from her still damp hair in summer nights. Those nights that were accompanied usually by that melancholic, electric time between dusk and darkness. What with their blue-orange glow from behind her gauzy curtains and the smell of perfection in post-rain must that floated through her open window on the falsehood of a breeze.

It was nights like those, although not what she dreamt of now, that she dreamt of when she was in Washington. She would lay down on the bed of the dormitory, Paris rattling off the next day's activities, and she would drift into a sleep that spoke magic. The magic of a perfect summer in Stars Hollow.

In her dream of Stars Hollow, Dean was nowhere to be seen. Sometimes this would emit a panic from Rory, adrenaline rushing into her system erratically and recklessly. She would flick her eyes around the town, her mind running so wild it was almost spherical.

Then there would be this eerie calm in the fact that he almost never existed. She'd wander the town in her khaki shorts and polo t-shirt, sweating somewhat from the power behind the heat of July sunlight. Then she'd seek the bridge, it's mindlessly shaded, cool and calm comfort.

He had found it too, she knew. She knew it before she embarked there and she knew it the entire way.

Her dream would change a little bit here, as always. While in Washington, he was sitting there, incomplete until she took a seat next to him, brushed her foot across his, and let him kiss her until her lungs were sore from holding in her breath. When she came back and Dean was there and Shane was firmly attached to Jess in the place that was tailored for Rory, she'd find him on the bridge, sitting there with Shane, reading Kerouac to her and it stabbed a sharp needle into her heart. A syringe that was full of green, glowing jealousy.

That needle would get driven in a little bit further when she'd see Dean on the other side of the bridge, smiling his neurotic white smile with his puppy dog eyes and golden boy hair. Then he'd catch eye of Jess and that smile would turn upside down so far it was unnatural and he'd glare at her, shake his head, and stamp off.

The thing that tore her heart in two was that she wanted to run after him and explain.

When she and Dean had broken up and she had gotten together with Jess, she'd find him standing in the middle, looking into the water with a book in his hand, like he was getting ready to leave. Like she had made it just in time to find him.

He'd look up at her and smile like the cat who caught the canary.

It made her want to sing.

Now instead, she dreamt of little things like coloring books and her first paper on the Atomic Bomb. She was reminiscent every once in a while. It was kind of a good thing for her to dwell. Sometimes she jumped a little too far when she dreamed.

Finally done swinging in the limbo between consciousness and sleep, she sat up and pressed the button on top of her clock. She stretched a little, trying to shake the fatigue from her head and eyes. Optimism was sometimes a stretch at seven.

Noticing the absence of the beat of Lorelai's companionable footsteps, Rory rose from her bed and stretched again, trying to alleviate the night and come into the morning. Her curtains were drawn shut and she saw a mild white glow from the November light seeping into the room. There were little insignificant shadows across her wooden floor that crept up the walls in a covert mission to allude that it was daylight.

She shuffled across the floor, still somewhat asleep and opened her door to the dark, cold house. It was too early still for Lorelai to be awake on Thanksgiving, but there were things to be done.

Rory stole a glance at the table.

It'd been three weeks since she told Lorelai about her arrangement with Jess. Three somewhat awkward, inwardly knotting, finally unwinding weeks. It took them a few days to go back to witty banter regarding their relationships. That was abnormal in theory, and completely cosmic in reality. It had been 3 Gilmore family dinners that never went this side of well, 20 or so breakfasts at Luke's where Jess would be tempted to take out a kitchen knife and cut the tension that he saw fabricate when he walked over with the carafe. A couple of nights out that Jess would hold his tongue from asking Rory because he didn't need to be told to know why.

It had also taken Lorelai _days_ to look Jess full in the eye again. She still hadn't informed Luke and she had no reason to suspect that Jess had either. It was unnerving. She felt like she had broken some agreement between Jess and Rory, and felt she was breaking yet another by not telling Jess.

Don't throw stones in a glass house.

Rory glided up the stairs slowly, leisurely opening her mother's door and knocking on the doorjamb.

"Happy Thanksgiving," Rory said softly, trying not to startle her mother.

Lorelai was pulled by the back of her neck out of a dream regarding Jakob Dylan (it'd been a while since had been a conversation topic in the Gilmore home) and thrown into the early white cotton morning. It was a cold and brusque morning that had some significance hanging in the back of her brain.

She grunted at her daughter and rolled over into her pillows, seeking the darkness behind her eyelids that she had earlier. "It's a holiday, sleep in," she insisted, muffled into the pillow and waving her hand at Rory as if to shoo her back downstairs.

Rory laughed and took the pillow that had been covering her mother's head.

"We have a busy day. We have to buy flowers, cranberry sauce for the Kim's, go to the Kim's, Luke's. Get up!" Rory said, shaking the mattress and causing Lorelai to finally open an eye.

"It's only just after seven!" she complained as her eyes landed on the clock.

"Did you not hear the list?" Rory asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Yes, I heard the list. The very SHORT list!" Lorelai said, still not awake.

"We have to get ready, it's a long day, and we're going to need to get coffee, up!" she said, finally removing the comforter from Lorelai who was now curled up in a ball in the middle of the mattress.

Pissed off and shocked into an awakened state, Lorelai stood up, looked at Rory, and stomped off into the bathroom.

"I hate you!" she said, in mock sweetness as she closed the door. Rory smirked.

"Happy Thanksgiving!"

xxx

It was ten past seven and Jess was asleep against the doorway between the storeroom and the diner, pretending to watch and listen as Luke hustled around like a decapitated chicken.

When Luke walked by with a turkey in a pan and was rattling off to Jess what temperature he had to keep the oven, Jess was startled into waking up and the jump made it known to Luke that he had been sleeping.

Luke stood there, looking at him for a second. "How does one go about falling asleep in a doorway?" he said, sounding bored.

Jess rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "The same way one goes about falling asleep in a bed, except standing up."

Luke glared. "Isn't it too early to be a smartass?"

"It's never too early to be a smartass," Jess countered, still trying hard to wake up.

"Did you hear anything I said?"

"Nope."

"Jess."

"I'm not lying. It's too early to lie," Jess said, blinking rapidly as he still tried hopelessly.

Luke paused while Jess moved around a little to get the blood flowing. "We have to feed the entire town today," Luke said, sounding exhausted.

"The exhausting part will be feeding the Gilmore's," Jess said.

Luke grinned. "Oh, you're in for a very, very enlightening day." He paused while Jess shifted his eyes. "Take this turkey, and listen to me this time. If I find you asleep over the stove, you've got to wait on Miss Patty."

xxx

The girls walked down the street, finally ready to begin their day, at ten o'clock.

"You did not ever go to school with Corey Feldman," Rory said, rolling her eyes, her arms already crossed over her chest from the cold and general disbelief at her mother's completely nonsensical ramblings.

They got bad when she was low on sleep, coffee, and food.

"I think I did! Only his name was Nick Waters and he didn't wear glasses!" Lorelai said, completely sure of herself.

"One, Corey Feldman's real name is Corey Feldman. Two, Corey Feldman wears glasses. Three, Corey Feldman's not from Connecticut. Case closed," Rory said as they stopped outside the door to Doose's.

"Let's stop fighting, this is bound to turn into blows," Lorelai said, giving up.

"Or you'll bring out a yearbook which is only entertaining for so long," Rory said, in the same light but also forgiving pitch.

"I agree."

"Friends again?" Rory asked.

"Duh," Lorelai said as he walked inside of Doose's. Rory smiled at her and motioned toward the flowers, then pointed into the store and made a face and mouthed Dean. Lorelai nodded and turned into the store and out of view from the street.

Rory picked over the flowers gingerly, closing out the street and the chaotic morning before her. Finally having chosen, she took bought them and stood on the street, against the wall, waiting for her mother to walk out of Doose's.

She took a moment to glance over the town. A wide, appraising sweep of her home. It felt like boxed in comfort. She could feel this little, amazing place simply emanate comfort. Her little place that seemed entirely separate from the world. It felt like there were wall of absolute fortification to anything that the world could break the consistency of her beautiful stability.

"You look happy," Jess said, walking up quickly, hands in his pockets, looking as if he were on his way to the market.

She was startled out of being contemplative and her vision rapidly refocused and she saw him standing there, like the smirking love of her life.

"Hi," she said, smiling back at him happily and walking toward him, cradling the flowers . He leaned over them and kissed her, his hands on her face dotingly.

"Hi," he said, scrutinizing the flowers. "Huh," he said, cocking his head and smiling a little brighter. "I have the feeling that this isn't going to go over _that_ well with Luke."

Rory laughed quietly. "It never does. He and my mom get in a fight about him not having a vase every year and then they fight some more about how they fight about it every year and eventually we decide to leave the flowers on the counter and forget about it."

Jess nodded and smirked a little bit. "Where're you headed to first?" he asked softly as they stood beside the building, looking out surreptitiously onto the street.

Rory sighed. "The Kim's. We go every year. It keeps Mrs. Kim from wanting to kill us."

"It's always a good thing to stay in her good graces. I've found it somewhat unpleasant not being in them," he said.

"What'd you do wrong?"

"Hesitated in calling her 'ma'am'," Jess said, smiling. Rory returned it. She loved when he believed in their camaraderie.

Lorelai walked out of the market, her bag in hand, walking happily down the stairs and around the corner to where she saw the teens.

She wrinkled her nose. "Were you kissing?"

"Now that you mention it," Jess said, bending down yet again and kissing Rory, this time a little more publicly affectionate.

"Hey now! I wasn't alluding that you _should_! Unfasten yourselves, we have to make an appearance at the Kim's, and then we have to go to the diner, then we can go home and complain," Lorelai said, heading slowly in the right direction.

Rory and Jess disengaged themselves from one another and Rory looked at Lorelai, confused, while Jess stood as the not-quite-ever-innocent bystander, hands in pockets, looking introspective.

"I thought we had to go to grandma and grandpas," she said, recounting the number of bouquets and holding up three fingers.

"I changed our minds," Lorelai said as if it made perfect sense.

"Mom, you can't just change our minds. Did you tell them why we weren't going?"

"Duh. I said we had to go to two other dinners today and that you had to study. I'm not stupid enough to forget to call," Lorelai said.

"I don't have to study."

"You always have to study."

"Studying is like Jell-O," Rory said, shrugging.

"Excuse me?" Jess finally interjected.

"There's always room for Jell-O, there's always room for studying," Rory explained.

Lorelai shook her head. "Such a robot I have created. Robot, say goodbye to Jess. We'll see him later," Lorelai said, taking Rory's arm and dragging her in the direction of the Kim's.

"Good bye, Jess," Rory said, slowly and articulately, waving mechanically. Jess waved and walked into the market.

"So," Lorelai said, once they were a block away and back to normal walking.

"So…?"

"Did you guys talk about anything?" Lorelai wondered nonchalantly.

"Not really. Mostly about how you and Luke fight about the flowers," Rory said.

"Damn me and my unplanned ways, I forgot about Luke and the flowers," Lorelai said, stopping on the porch and smacking herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand.

"It's funny, I love it when he leaves them on the counter and can't figure out what to do with them for days," Rory said, smiling excitably.

"Ah, the Gilmores," Mrs. Kim said, opening the door and examining them abruptly before opening the door. "Please come in."

"Happy Thanksgiving Mrs. Kim!" Rory said, handing her the flowers and smiling brightly, cleanly.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" Lorelai said, mimicking the smile and instead handing her a can of cranberry sauce.

Rory leaned over to Lorelai. "This is going to be the longest forty-five minutes of my life," she whispered furtively into Lorelai's ear.

xxx

"I told you that would be a long forty-five minutes," Rory said grumpily as they walked down the street, drained from the oppressive social demeanor of the Kim household during family gatherings.

"I didn't think it would be world-record long!" Lorelai countered.

"Hate to say I told you so," Rory said, shaking her head.

"The Hives?" Lorelai questioned.

"What?" Rory said, aghast.

"The Hives," Lorelai insisted, turning to her as they stopped at the street corner directly across from the diner. Rory caught a glimpse of Jess and felt her heart jump.

"What about the hives? What hives? Did you hive up from the ToFurkey?" Rory asked, examining her mother's hands.

"Not hives on me. The band! You and Lane blast that CD all the time," Lorelai pointed out.

"Oh! I love that song," Rory said as they started to cross the street.

"And so the conversation begins again."

"We have serious subject matter issues," Rory pointed out.

"It's not necessarily a matter of having too much or too little or even bizarre subject matter, it's the fact that we couldn't stay on topic if we were tied to it and being dragged through a long, narrow hallway," Lorelai over-explained as they entered the diner with a ding.

"Hey," Luke said, delivering a plate to a table. "We're set up over there," he said, pointing to the table by the window.

"Thanks," Lorelai smiled, pecking him lightly on the lips as she and Rory moved over toward the table.

"Is Jess…?" Rory inquired to Luke, pointing up at the apartment.

"Yeah, he should be. He just went up a minute ago, you can go and get him if you want," Luke said.

"Thanks," she said as she scooted back out of her chair and gracefully but quickly ascended the stairs.

Jess was walking out of the door as Rory finally reached the top of the stairs.

"Hey," he said, grinning.

"Hi," she said, also grinning, but smaller and more femininely.

"I had to get away for a minute. Luke and I had a thing this morning where if I fell asleep while I was supposed to be working again, I would have to wait on Miss Patty. And even though I managed to stay awake for the most part he made me do it anyway. Needless to say the afternoon's been a bit…handsy," he said, finally finding the right word.

Rory immediately began hysterical laughing, trying to hide it with her hands and turning away, but unable to hide the actual laughing. He loved the noise. He loved the noise almost as much as he loved to look at her.

But there was nothing he loved more than kissing her.

"I don't think that's a very nice thing to do to me on Thanksgiving," Jess said, taking her hand and dragging her down the stairs with him, back into the rabid masses.

"You said handsy! And meant it!" Rory said, announcing it to the diner.

"Aw geez, go sit at the table, I'll be there in a minute," he said, guiding her in the right direction before releasing her hand.

"That was quick," Lorelai said, sitting at her seat, nursing a brand spankin' new cup of coffee. Rory had one at her seat as well.

"He was walking out the door when I got upstairs," she said, gesturing upward and sliding into her seat.

"What was he doing upstairs?"

"He needed a minute away from Patty," Rory said, looking around. She heard him yelp and turned quickly enough to see Patty smile in what she thought was a seductive way and Jess turn burgundy before he came to the table with plates. Luke walked a short distance behind him, smiling widely.

"You will pay, you realize this," Jess said, sitting down and glaring daggers at Luke who was also taking a seat, next to Lorelai.

"Right," Luke said as he picked up his fork. He paused.

"Should we say grace?" he asked the table. All around the girls and Jess were holding their forks, suspended in midair, ready to crash into the food that had been set before them.

"What?" Lorelai said, looking at him confusedly.

"You know, 'thanks god for making turkeys disposable to our race and thanks for not making me unloved'," Luke suggested, gesturing a little as he spoke for some effect.

"Amen," Lorelai said, her attention returning to the food.

"Amen," Jess and Rory agreed quietly as they also began to eat.

"How was the Kim's?" Jess wondered a minute or so later, quietly, just to Rory. Luke and Lorelai had chosen this moment instead of earlier to complain about the flowers that were lying in his counter and making his customers move to other tables.

"It was amusing if nothing else. My mom had to eat ToFurkery," she said, smiling a little bit to him, her hair falling in front of them and creating a completely private and close curtain to their conversation.

"ToFurkey?"

"Tofu shaped like a turkey," Rory confirmed.

"I can't see your mom eating tofu shaped like a turkey," Jess said easily.

"It wasn't pretty."

Jess smiled and they sat in a friendly, compassionate, but private silence behind the drape of auburn, satin hair that had been hung before them.

"Are you doing something after this?" Jess asked, grinning somewhat as he saw a flicker of mischief behind the cobalt that existed in her eyes.

"Never eating again."

He laughed. "What about after?"

She thought for a moment. "Nothing special. Why?" she finally wondered, his eyes speaking sheer poetry in cocoa.

He smiled like lightning.

**It was a filler, but I liked it much better than the last chapter (hence the fast update). Review please! The button is magical, I promise not really, don't sue me, I don't have anything. **


	7. Lovesick Bumpkin

**A/N-Ahh, hello? Anyone out there? I feel like I'm one of the only people still out there in Gilmore Fic land! **

**So, this is also going to contain excerpts from something Jess is writing. Sorry, but this is the only time I'm venturing into the foggy world of the mind of a boy and trying to make it sound believable. From here on out, I vow to paraphrase. **

**Well, this clearly is chapter 8, it's taking place about ten days later, which will make it December. I decided after much internal debating to save Lorelai and the first snow of the year for another time. Besides, the first snow of the year in the northeast from what I've been told occurs in November. **

**I'm still trying to get back to my reviewers, forgive me, you know that I love you anyway! **

**Again, PLEASE R/R!**

He had that raggedy notebook again. That denim blue, retro Five Star, three-subject, actually falling apart notebook in his stupid, secretive hand again. His lips didn't lie, and neither did those eyes and certainly not that one-sided smirk. But that hand that clutched so hard and the other one that scribbled in it. Those hands lied in volumes.

She seethed a little bit every time she saw it. "What is it?" she'd asked sweetly. "Soon enough," he'd say. She'd retort about his secretive demeanor, his cryptic sense of humor. He'd keep her voice away from his inspired psyche and keep writing. Writing with that stupid pencil from behind his stupid ear and instead of filling in the margins of Catcher in the Rye meticulously, it was composing something entirely separate and mysterious.

He looked at her from over the top of the notebook as he sat on the chair, studying her for a moment with a reflective, learning gaze, and returned to his writing, his Dixon Ticonderoga dancing across the page to the beat of the color of her hair in the blue December light. She caught his glimpse, her eyes looking almost sad, and then looking back into the depths of her garage, feeling his eyes burn trails through her body as he kept looking for things to utilize with his poeticism.

Jess shifted in his seat that he had dragged down from the porch, rereading what he had written and closing the notebook. He'd have to tell her eventually, he could see her distancing herself every time she saw it. Every time they were together. He could feel that positive/negative bond start to break a little every time he wrote in it and didn't tell her why.

It wasn't that she probably couldn't guess. If she had taken a moment to watch the way he thought, like he knew that she could, she could've guessed what it was exactly that he meant.

She flipped her hair to brush off the hostility and went back to watching the band practice, trying to ignore the fact that Jess was smirking sadly at her. She mentally pseudo-quoted Pablo Neruda. He did have this exquisite sadness. She read it like Irving in the curvature of his spine and the mishandled shuffle of his step. He was just so sad.

_My picture will not be on this book_, Jess reread, flipping finally to the front of his journal to reminisce on his first few words. The words were so sharp, so cut and dry. Nowadays he had a little more latitude in his sentences for metaphoric interpretation.

_My picture will not be on this book because if you saw me, you'd probably think I couldn't spell irony if it knocked me in the head and gave me a formal lesson. You'd also probably like to think that I write like Salinger._

_Sorry to disappoint, though it is my one true talent. I refuse to ever allude to the saying 'woe is me'. _

He kind of missed writing like that. That refusal of weakness. That heartbreaking analogy. He almost missed feeling that way too. And then, he knew, as this went on, he'd fall into this lovesick sweetness that made his beginning of the book want to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge in its own satire.

_I was born and raised in New York City. You probably just read that and almost put the book down. Forgive the carbon copy start, this is my first try at this. _

_Like I was saying, I was born and raised in New York City. Though, the way I look at it, very little raising happens in the city. Mostly I tried to keep some shred of faith. Yes, all too close to a Bon Jovi lyric, please spare me the comparison. _

_My mother was addictive. First, when I was born, my mother addicted herself to someone named Jimmy, though my name is Jess and my middle name is Joseph. But there it was, a regular old James addiction. _

_I should've been named James, actually. The small, Connecticut_ _town that I am currently exiled to refers to me as their resident James Dean. Every town needs one. I live to serve._

_After I was born, my mother became addicted to her life without the help of a man. I haven't seen Jimmy since. Though the next week, when Jimmy was a good 3,000 miles away, she found a new one._

_So begins my life. _

_Actually, maybe I write a little bit like Salinger. _

"That kind of sucked," Brian said, taking out his inhaler and drawing deeply, a helpless looked highlighted on his face.

"That more than kind of sucked," Dave confirmed, letting his guitar hang dejectedly from the sling over his shoulder.

"That definitely more than sucked," Jess mumbled to himself and smiled discreetly, feeling the playful glare that Rory shot his way. "Sorry," he apologized, smiling still into the paper that he continued to read.

_Besides the fact that I can't stray from a single ounce of my overly literate roots, my life began, from what I remember, the first time I opened a book. I'm not sure how old I was, but I remember sitting in my mother's closet. At the time, we were living in one of a parade of sublet, dirty, one bedroom apartments in the city, usually next door to either a meth lab or a crack house. Sometimes we were squashed between a combination of the two. _

_Anyway, I was sitting there, hiding from my mother and her boyfriend du jour, when I came across a book of my grandmother's. My mother, Liz's, mom, had died a long time ago, but from what I was told by my uncle Luke, who you'll meet in time to turn, she loved to read. So I'm sitting there, hiding, and the whole closet smells like week-old canned beer and stale pot, and I come across this really old, god help me, paperback (it'll make sense later), copy of Alice in Wonderland. _

"It's not the drumming," Lane said, snappily. Immediately defensive.

"Duh it wasn't the drumming. _Someone_ just can't seem to keep track of the chord progressions," Dave said, turning to Zack and glaring.

"Dude, chord progressions equals memorization, equals tres difficile!" Zack said pleadingly.

"Dude, enough with the dudes and foreign languages, okay? It isn't enough that Lane speaks in Korean when she misses a beat?" Dave said, turning to the rest of the band. Rory was watching on, shivering somewhat and stealing glances at Jess as he read. She wanted to scream.

"I've actually never heard Lane speak Korean," Brian said, looking around, confused.

"Me neither," Zack said, trying to pull off suspicion. "When have you heard her speak Korean that we haven't?"

Dave froze inside. "Uh, you haven't heard it?"

"I don't miss beats that often," Lane covered with arrogance.

"Once in a blue moon," Dave said, trying still to distract them.

"Right," Zack said, nodding with his eyes narrowed.

"Yeah," Dave said, turning around and widening his eyes beseechingly at Rory and Jess. Jess had since closed the notebook and set it on the dry spot of the ground, watching the argument that was forming now among the band with a mild sense of apprehension. He leaned in to whisper to Rory. She reflexively leaned toward him, letting her hair curtain them again.

"Do they not know about Lane and Dave?" Jess whispered. Rory shook her head and pressed her finger to her lips. Jess smiled a small smile and removed her finger and replaced that space with his lips for a brief moment in time. She was still mad.

"Hey!" Dave said, waving his hands. "No making out at band practice!"

Jess looked at Rory with an eyebrow raised. _It'd be so easy to just say it now_, he worded effortlessly with that helpless look he painted so easily. Rory shook her head discreetly and turned, her hair falling back into place and exposing them again.

"Sorry," Rory explained, sitting back in her chair. She fidgeted for a moment to try and get comfortable and then checked her watch.

Jess saw her check and took a second to check his, looking back up at the band. "Actually, we have to get going anyway," he said, bending over to pick up the notebook and Rory's hand. She squeezed his, maybe she could get over being mad if she could read a few words.

"Where're you going?" Lane asked, confused.

"Jess has to study for the SAT," Rory explained simply.

"Ah," she said. They all waved and exchanged goodbyes.

They walked for a while, out of the driveway and down the sidewalk, absently hand in hand.

"You're cold," he said, squeezing her hand and looking at her, his head cocked.

"It's December," she pointed out, smiling.

They kept walking toward the apartment, silent. She wished she didn't resent him right then. She turned, eager to just ask again, maybe, just maybe this time, if he heard the desperation just right, he'd tell her what it was.

"Jess," she started. He looked at her, acknowledging her quiet beckoning. "What is it?" she inquired quietly, forcefully.

He looked toward the ground, felt her eyes bore into him. He felt the distance in that glare. He felt her hand try to grasp a shred of truth in the past 3 weeks.

He hadn't meant for it to be such a divine secret. He had wanted her to know all along. The only problem with her knowing, was that he didn't even know. He had set out writing this when he got to Stars Hollow without much direction. He just knew he had a story to tell.

Jess had managed to keep it a secret for a while. Writing late at night with Luke grunting about the lights still being on. Being able to keep his ideas clandestine because he wasn't allowed to see her that often. Luke dragged him away, Lorelai demanded their distance, Dean did that whole, towering over him thing. It wasn't hard to not let loose the little thing he had in his brain that went immediately into that notebook.

Then it started to turn into this huge project. Hell, it even had a plot. It wasn't like he didn't write back in New York, he wrote a lot back in New York. He never finished a damn thing, but he wrote a lot in New York. Anecdotes about city kids and single parent families. A few to coddle his fears about a kid who grew up in Greenwich Village with a solid, double-income family.

Those stories rarely made it past page five when he'd lose all knowledge of what he was writing about. He had absolutely no clue. He was a poor Italian kid from the inner-city.

He almost sighed. Then he saw her eyes. They were that foggy color today. Foggy because she wanted so desperately to be closer to him, but had to accept the distance. It broke his heart more than she had intended.

Rory almost saw him come apart from the look she gave him, so pleading. Ridiculously helpless.

"It's a story," he said quietly, stopping them in the town square for a moment so they could talk.

She almost sighed, too. She knew it all along, she wanted more than that.

"About what?" she said, kicking her naivety across town so she could get a straight answer while she could.

"What I know," he said simply. It was about New York. It was about books. It was about her and the way that she sighed against his skin.

She lowered her eyebrows, almost confused. "What you know?"

"It's pseudo-autobiographical, but it's different. I've been working on it for about a year," he said, averting his eyes and gesturing a little bit with his free arm.

"A year?" she asked quietly.

"It's just something I've been doing. Nobody but you knows about it now," he said, trying to overprotect her concerns about his secrecy.

"I've known you for this entire year and you never mentioned this?" she said, still quiet. She was trying to keep it secret. Trying not to fly off the handle.

"Rory, I already told you. This started out as nothing, and nobody else knows about it. I'm only telling you because you seem to actually care," he said, looking at her pleadingly. Easing her into accepting his secrecy.

"Are you joking me? Jess!" she said, a little bit louder. "Why do you think you need to keep this a secret from me?"

"I'm not sure. But I'm not letting it be read until I'm sure of what it is. I didn't want to offend you either way, and it was either admitting that I kept a secret or telling you and not letting you see what it actually is," he tried to explain, frustrated, restrained.

"So it's a manuscript," Rory stated, looking at the ground.

"Yeah," Jess agreed, looking in the other direction.

Rory nodded. She felt terrible. She knew all along what it was, a presiding fact in the back of her mind. It sat there in that section of her mind with a few other things, a few other completely obvious things. She felt awful for letting it get in the way. She felt awful for making him admit it.

"All right," she said, looking back to him.

"That's it?" he questioned after a few moments. "You were freaking out a few minutes ago and now it's just 'all right'?" he asked again.

"I guess," she said, eyes wide and obvious.

"Seriously Rory? This is how it's going to be? If you're pissed off at me, then be pissed off at me!" He forced a breath and ran his now free hand through his hair, then taking her hand again after a moment of thought.

"I don't know," she admitted quietly, looking away from him.

"Don't you get it?" he asked, pushing quietly. "This is about _you_. I don't want to alienate our relationship by sounding like a lovesick bumpkin," he said, almost smiling.

Rory laughed loudly. "Living in Connecticut has not done good things for your city vocabulary," she said. She wiped away a renegade laughing tear and nodded at him. "I think I get it." He smiled at her and kissed her forehead.

"It's a pride issue," he admitted, shrugging. "Now, can you please help me study for the SAT?" he asked, mockingly exuberant.

"Will you really study?" she asked when they were walking again, hand in hand but sheepish at the disagreement.

"Probably."

xxx

"What time is it?" Lane said, silencing her cymbal after another less-than-inspiring few minutes of practice.

Brian checked his watch. "Ten to four. What time do you have to be home?" he asked, looking pathetic.

"I have to be home in forty minutes," she stated as she stood up from her stool and shoved her drumsticks in her back pocket.

"Then why are you leaving now?" Zack questioned.

"Because if I have to spend another ten minutes listening to us suck, these drum sticks," she said, brandishing them in either hand, "are going into my ears way deeper than they should."

"I may have to join you in that threat," Dave said, taking off his guitar and putting it in the case, then picking it up. He dug around in his pocket for a minute and then threw his keys to Zack. "Lock the garage, I'm gonna walk Lane home and then I'll be back to drive you home," he said, walking beside Lane toward the end of the driveway.

"Hey, get your stuff, let's get out of here," Zack said to Brian as he picked up his guitar case and threw the instrument into it, waiting impatiently and watching Lane and Dave keep walking.

"What's your hurry?" Brian said as he finished and stood next to Zack, trying to see farther than his glasses allowed.

"I'm trying to figure out what's up with Jack and Meg over here and you're slowing me down," he said as he walked quickly and quietly down the driveway toward Lane and Dave.

"What?"

"The White Stripes, would you please try to keep up?" Zack said as they reached the end and peeked around quietly.

Around the corner of the driveway, just barely out of the line of vision for most of town, Lane and Dave were sharing a very passionate, socially indecent, post-band practice kiss. Zack started walking back toward the car, visibly miffed. Brian followed at a close distance, rambling confusedly.

"We have a Yoko," he said as he put the guitar in the car and kicked the dirt. "We have a damn Yoko! I always promised myself I would never be in a band with a Yoko!"

"I thought she was a Meg."

"Yes, and our amps go to 11. Get a clue," Zack said, brushing him off and locking the garage. "This is going to be the end of our band. If they break up, we won't have a drummer, half of any of our possible gigs, a place to practice, or our quirky Asian girl!" he complained.

"We have a Yoko."

xxx

"Sorry that practice went so late today," Dave said as they walked to the Kim's.

"It didn't, I cut it off 20 minutes early because I couldn't take it anymore."

Dave laughed. "Regardless."

"It's fine, I have fun."

"Jess and Rory were tense today," Dave commented.

"It's that notebook, the one he kept dragging around with him. He won't tell her what it is and he keeps writing in it. It's created a little bit of tension."

"I see."

"That, and she's not sure if he's applying to college and is trying to get him to study for his SAT."

"It'll all work out," Dave confirmed confidently.

"You're awfully optimistic," Lane said.

"About more things than that," he said, smiling at her. She grinned back happily.

xxx

"Studying is such a bad code word," Lorelai said from her spot at the counter, waiting for her to-go coffee.

"What she said," Luke said as he placed it in front of her. Rory and Jess smiled and scurried up the stairs. Lorelai kissed Luke quickly and ran out the door, back to the Inn.

**End is abrupt, I'm aware, but oh well. Reviews please?**


	8. Application Anxiety

**A/N-hides face in hands and mumbles incoherent apologies. I know, I've been AWOL. My life kind of went spazzy on me without asking first and so writing has been a rare commodity in my free time. This chapter has taken a while to come to me, as has most of this story. I promise, I will be inspired again, it's just taking me a while. **

**I'm pretty sure this chapter is going to take place in January, but I'm not going to incorporate Valentine's Day. I'm trying to accelerate the timeframe somewhat, since I'm on chapter 8 and still need to make sure I hit graduation by chapter 15. So here we go, this is trying to be Chapter 8.**

Christmas came and passed over the town, the way it had planned on. Jess and Rory had exchanged presents on the bridge, both freezing and out of breath. They gave one another books. Luke and Lorelai spent Christmas morning together, much to the chagrin of the teenagers.

New Year's Eve came and went. They all brought in the New Year. A fairly frightening 2003.

When Luke tore open the unexpected box that had been shipped out to them from the rest of the family who had taken it upon themselves to box up Liz's apartment, he had at least expected small things that Jess wouldn't want. Old school work (if he had any) that sat at the bottom of his closet, maybe letters from his friends (if they were literate), leftover clothes (not that he didn't have enough), a renegade stuffed animal, the offhand possibility of baby clothes.

Luke hadn't expected to find all of these things, and a letter addressed to him from Jess's old high school.

"Hey Jess!" Luke called down the stairs, where Jess was wiping down tables and taking down chairs for the morning.

"Yes master?" he said, sliding the curtain and looking up.

"Did you go to Phillip Walker High School?"

"Is there a wildcat in the lower left-hand corner of the envelope?" he inquired, a little more quietly.

Luke glanced down at the letter in his hand. "Yeah."

"Then yes, I did," he said, walking up the stairs and sighing.

"Why did they send me a letter?" Luke said, leading the way back into the apartment, the door remaining open.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said, putting down the rag and peering at the envelope. "They must've sent it to Liz's apartment and hoped she'd forward it to you."

"It's from the end of September," he said.

"Looks and smells about as old."

"Why didn't she send it to me?"

"You're trying to understand my mother's actions, they rarely meant anything."

They both stood and stared more at the envelope and the little wildcat sitting as an illusion of ferociousness.

"Open it!" Jess finally ordered. Luke glared at him and opened the letter.

They both stared.

"It's your transcript," Luke said as he scanned the letter. He set it on the table and looked at Jess, disbelievingly and amused.

"What?" he said.

"According to this, you were second in your class," Luke said, laughing. "And apparently you were writing for the school paper." Luke started laughing straight out. "And you almost flunked out of here last semester."

Jess stood, watching, not amused and somewhat embarrassed.

"Is this a joke?" Luke asked, brandishing the transcript.

"Nope," Jess said, looking at the floor.

Luke straightened up. "Jess, you were seriously going to make salutatorian. Why didn't anybody know about this? And your mom said you were doing bad and getting into trouble," Luke said, in rapid succession.

Jess sighed. "I need a cigarette."

"Jess."

"Everybody at my old school knew about it, my mom didn't know about it. Obviously. There was a letter sent personally from my principal to her and you she never even touched it. It's that very letter you hold in your hand. She got one too, and never read it. I got in trouble because I started slacking off this summer because I wasn't in class. I hung out with some kids who had no idea what they were doing and we got pulled over with open alcohol in the car. Everyone else got an escort home, but Liz told them to throw me in a holding cell until she was sober enough to find her purse and come get me," he explained, always in a monotone.

"She said you were doing drugs," Luke said.

"I wasn't."

"You smoked then?"

"Like a chimney."

"I didn't know the salutatorian was allowed to smoke."

"I didn't know that the salutatorian's mom was allowed to be an alcoholic stoner," Jess said, shrugging.

"You'd be surprised."

"I doubt it," Jess said, deftly halting the conversation's forward movement. They both paused for a moment, regrouping.

"Your Yale application came today, too," Luke said as he picked up the box from the large envelope and walked out of the apartment, closing the door swiftly and definitely behind him.

xxx

"We have our property!" Lorelai and Sookie cheered outside of the Independence Inn that morning, dancing in a circle.

"Who would've thought after months of deliberation we would end up getting the Inn that we didn't think we were going to get?" Sookie said, ironically and out of breath.

"I couldn't very well bid on anything else. We aren't quite that opulent yet, buddy," Lorelai said, smiling goofily.

"But we're gonna be!" Sookie cheered, thrusting a fist into the air forcefully and bringing it back down.

"Eventually!" Lorelai chimed in.

"You are going to be what?" Michel droned melancholically as he rounded the corner with a travel coffee mug in his hand and a hopeless sigh glued to his face.

"Rich rich rich!" Sookie cheered again.

"By doing what exactly? Or don't I want to know?" Lorelai and Sookie shared a look of stonewalled panic and they turned back to Michel, in silent resolve.

"Owning our own Inn!" Sookie exclaimed.

"The two of you plan on owning a successful Inn?" Michel said, his every word dripping venomous doubt.

"We do," Lorelai said, trying hard not to become defensive. Michel fidgeted, almost annoyed for a moment before he finally sighed in frustration and stomped up the steps and into the Inn.

"Somebody must've gotten whole milk instead of skim this morning," Sookie said, mocking a clandestine nature.

"I'm pretty sure that hissy fit had something to do with our owning an Inn, Sook," Lorelai tried to explain, walking slowly up to the door.

"Why would Michel be bothered by us owning our own Inn? We've said about a million times that one day we were going to invest in our own property and buy it and make it ours," Sookie tried to understand, standing next to Lorelai outside the door.

"Yes, but I'm pretty sure he always assumed that somewhere in there he was included."

Sookie gawked. "We forgot Michel!"

"We forgot Michel," Lorelai confirmed, shaking her head sadly.

They both paused.

"Actually, I never really forgot Michel. I always kind of assumed he came with the deal," Sookie said, gesturing.

"I know what you mean. I don't think I want to try and run a new Inn without his petulant eye for perfection," Lorelai said, miffed. She shook her head, now sad. "We forgot about a lot of people sweetie. We're not going to be able to drag the entire staff with us. Probably very few of them. Not many people are willing to give up a job at a successful business to try their hand at working for a new one."

"And let's not forget Mia," Sookie pointed out. Lorelai groaned and covered her face with her hands.

"We still have to talk to Mia," she announced, muffled from her hands.

"She's gonna be crushed," Sookie said sadly.

"I feel _horrible_. I mean, she did everything for me. She took in me and Rory when we had nothing, gave me a job with no experience, and now, is basically letting you and I run this place while she's in California. I don't even know how I'm going to go about telling her that I'm abandoning her and taking the head chef and desk clerk with me," Lorelai confessed.

"We're taking Michel?"

"Sookie, we can't very well leave him. I thought we had decided that we couldn't let him stay here by himself. He's been there for us, despite the fact that he bothers me constantly and often gums up the workplace."

"I can't believe how much we have to leave behind," Sookie said, looking out across the grounds pensively. Lorelai followed her gaze.

"It's gonna be hard, I won't lie," Lorelai said, sighing. It was a painful sort of sigh, she felt the weight of leaving riding high in her sternum and the prospect of all-too plausible bankruptcy weighing heavy on her mentality.

It wasn't as if the excess pressure of Rory on her way to Harvard and her rapidly hectic relationship with Jess weren't pressure enough on her financial and mental situations, she now had to deal with the sure to be dramatic parting with the Independence Inn and a forever overly-dramatic combination of Sookie and Michel.

"I should go in and console Michel before he starts screaming at everyone in sight. See you in there, hon," Sookie said as she turned and walked through the doors.

Lorelai sighed heavily and leaned against the railing of the porch. She could handle a little pressure here and there. Hell, she could take more than most. She had adapted to that much. But so much on her horizon made her stomach tense up in the abject fear of change and failure.

She still had Luke though. Luke was this immovable fixture in her life. At the same time, Luke was a little bit of a distraction. She was trying to take care of her affairs regarding Rory and the hesitance that she inadvertently felt about her still seeing Jess and the fact that the relationship was progressing.

Progression is a scary, scary fact.

xxx

Rory walked up the street to her house, taking a sidelong glance at the diner and another at the Inn. She was taking her steps meaningfully and intensely toward her house, stopping purposefully at the mailbox.

Yale.

Harvard.

Princeton.

Brown.

Columbia.

All of the big applications sitting hopefully in the mailbox, hiding conspicuously from Lorelai.

Especially that big envelope with the blue Yale insignia emblazoned on the top. That envelope would have to hide a lot better than that obvious and vain Harvard application.

Maybe even the stigma regarding Brown, Princeton, and Columbia would force them to hide a little bit too.

She quickly took the mail and tucked it to her chest, shuffling into the house guiltily. She slammed the door to her room and picked up the phone, dropping her backpack unceremoniously on the hardwood floor beside her bed.

She dialed his number.

"Luke's," he said, sounding bored.

"My applications came," she said, sounding far away and out of breath. He paused for dramatic affect and maybe a taste of sadness.

It didn't taste like champagne this time. This time it more closely resembled gin being snuck out of a liquor cabinet. Boundlessly bitter. Horrible and obviously having strings attached that would do nothing short of lead him nowhere fast.

"All of them?" he said, feigning confusion and absent-mindedness.

"Five, so yeah," she said, counting them again and sighing, coming back a little from her dream trip state that she had gone into when she looked in the mailbox.

"That's some quality synchronization. Good to see with all that Ivy League braininess they've managed to master the habits of the United States Postal Service," Jess said, slouching behind the counter and looking out across the diner, struggling to form his words indifferently.

"It's overwhelming," she said, ignoring his comments.

"You've got a while yet to get them in," Jess pointed out.

"Yeah, I know." She fidgeted. "I just…filling these out is kind of like finalizing my future. Maybe not definitely, but it's a bold step toward it." She moved again and set her mouth in a concerned frown. "I'm almost reluctant."

"Don't be," Jess said, unprepared to tell her about both the transcript and the Yale application. She knew him better than almost anybody, but she didn't know this and he had no idea how to go about it.

"I'll try not to," she compromised, seeing no end to his apathy. "I'm going to go study. I'll see you later?" she said, trying fruitlessly to improve his mood through suggestion.

"Yeah, okay. Probably. I'll call you," he said as he stood back up and immediately regretted everything he'd said or thought within the context of the conversation.

"Bye," she said sadly. He responded and hung up the phone and she bit her bottom lip, fidgeting as she looked for a new undertaking. The applications required organization and organization required some level of calmness that she couldn't come across without much effort and probably a change of clothes. It was often time difficult to relax when you were in pleated plaid and starched cotton.

She quickly fixed the problem with jeans and her nervous energy seemed to go with it, stitched into the fibers methodically and meaningfully. She stood in her room again, letting out a breath that she wasn't aware that she was holding and stuffing her hands in her pockets. She eyed the door and finally resolved to leave. She didn't know what bothering her exactly, but she had come to be suspect usually of the mocha-eyed boy that she knew so very well.

Rory reached the diner just as she thought her nose and ears were sure to fall off from the bone cold January air.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed in a gasp when the door of the diner shut behind her and she pulled off her winter hat and shoved it in her pocket.

"Coffee?" Luke asked as he walked by and scrutinized her condition absently.

"Lots and lots and lots," she said as she took a seat at the counter and huddled closer into her jacket.

"It's a cold one," he agreed as he poured the cup and gestured toward the stairs. "The Antisocial Wonder is upstairs. I gave him the night off because he was brooding especially bad today. Might want to see what it's about," Luke said as he replaced the carafe and picked up an order.

"I'm taking my cup," she called, deciding that if things were bad enough for Jess to deny her access to the apartment then she would just throw the cup through the frosted glass, and if he let her in she could finish it before it went cold.

"Whatever," Luke said as she ascended the stairs slowly.

"Muscles frozen?" Jess said from the middle of the stairs, his mood lightening at the site of her working her way up the stairs lazily.

"Actually yes," she said as she spotted him and smiled. "I was coming up to see you. Luke said I could bring my cup with me. Where're you headed?" she asked.

"Book store. Had nothing better to do, what with the night off suddenly and everything," he said, splaying his hands in a gesture suggesting basic freedom.

"Inconvenient that it's a Thursday and not a Friday though," Rory said, cocking her head apologetically. They stood for a moment, Jess nodding in accord. "Let's go upstairs, I'm freezing," she said, grabbing his arm and dragging him behind her. He almost argued. He was almost positive that his Yale application and transcript were still in plain sight.

"You're actually giving up a chance to drag someone with a steady income into Andrew's?" he tried. She seemed steadfast so he opened the door before she got there and swept his eyes over the room.

Luke's freakish managerial attitude was the first thing Jess was thankful for when he found the application and transcript not only absent from the room, but also the box from Liz's apartment.

"We can go to Andrew's later, but right now I feel like I might actually never defrost. January is not my style," she said as she took a seat on the couch, curling her feet under her and chugging the coffee happily.

"Yes, you are so much more of a summer," Jess said as he sat next to her and grinned.

"You need to stop watching VH1," Rory said, eyeing him out of the corner of her eye.


	9. Moonlit Midnight

**A/N**-**Oh my god. This hiatus, please believe me, was unintentional and unwanted. It started with a full on computer crash, proceeded to take on a whole different ballpark when I fell into the arms of a complete douchebag, who then proceeded to rip my heart out and trample all over my muse, and then I started working more so I haven't even been home to write things out longhand. **

**Please forgive me for also not having the email records set aside for my thanks. You all know that I love you dearly and will try to never again leave you hanging for almost 4 months.**

**This is chapter 9. If it seems detached, I'm sorry, I also lost my outline so now I'm pretty much flying by the seat of my pants. **

There is never a right way to wait for time to pass. Rory was finding herself fruitlessly trying to remember how to count in French. No matter how many times that she failed though, that 1:57 a.m. on her clock simply would not change over to 2.

When it suddenly changed to 1:58, she began to feel herself tense with apprehension. She shouldn't be sneaking out of the house, something she knew all-too consciously. The only thing that kept her from giving in to the fear, rolling over, and sleeping fitfully though, was the anticipation.

Jess had asked her to meet him at the bridge at 2. She paled at the idea. The Virgin Mary was sneaking out to meet her boyfriend. She knew though, that he had something to tell her above all else. It was the way the mischief that danced lightly through his heart seemed to be missing. The way he slightly hung his head like he had something big to say.

It was the only thing driving her forward and out of her bed.

1:59 came quickly and she held her breath. The sounds that the Crap Shack made regularly were drowned by the erratic pounding in her ears and the deafening ring that she seemed to pick up on every time she got out of line.

Slowly she let out the breath steadily and sat on the edge of the bed, her feet hanging off the side, a breath away from the cold wood floor, letting her blood distribute itself.

With a perfectly silent breath, she let her feet press to the floor and rose, a small squeak emitted from the floorboards and a tiny pop in her foot. She stopped breathing for a fraction of a second, and then shuffled across the floor, picked up her jacket, slipped into her shoes, and stood before the window.

Lifting it silently and slowly, she slipped between the window and its sill, put her feet on the porch, and closed the window within an inch of the sill.

She took off down the driveway and back down the sidewalk. The winter nights in Stars Hollow were icy and eerie, the tucked in warmth that was usually present seeming to be absent as the frost bitten wind whipped through the branches and made the powdery snow swirl up and down the sidewalk.

Rory let her saddle shoes increase in noise as she moved further from her house and closer to the bridge. She wandered with an air that screamed carefree and freezing, even though the last thing she needed to be was reckless.

Standing before the bridge, she saw in the soft and decorative lighting, Jess standing in the middle with his hands in his pockets, grinning at her while his breath condensed in clouds. She grinned back and walked out quickly, noticing he had his notebook with him.

"You came," he commented, still unmoving.

"I came," she returned. They stood for a minute, a few feet apart, but not unhappy.

Rory sat down on the bridge and looked up at Jess, patting the place next to her. He took the seat with a quiet laugh and rubbed his hands together for warmth, staring out across the lake, but not locating the ice-breaking phrase that would whip either of them into an informational frenzy.

"What's new?" she wondered, staring at the side of his face. He sighed one more time.

"I figured I wasn't going to be able to stifle your curiosity for very long," he said, rifling through the loose papers in the notebook.

"It's not healthy to stifle curiosity. People should be free to have access to the information that they seek," she said.

"You're just nosy. Don't try to jazz it up." Rory glared at him and Jess smiled, able to feel the look she was giving him. He started at the upside down sheet of paper in his hand and took another breath.

"Here's the deal," he started. "A couple of days ago Luke got a box from the rest of the family of stuff that had been in my mom's apartment that was mine or Luke's. In the box, was this letter that Luke hadn't gotten forwarded to him from my mom. And it was from my old high school. You'll want to read this first," he said, flipping it over and handing it to her.

Rory's intrigue was tingling when her fingers touched the paper that Jess had handed her, curious and sick to her stomach, not possibly able to make a guess as to its content or reason for presentation at such a time. She felt fitful and anxious when she let her eyes focus with a sense of abject anticipation on the small and professional print.

He watched her read it, sensed the expectation. He was keen to her fidgeting, clearly able to read her little, seemingly unnoticeable moments where she strayed from habit.

"Phillip Walker?" Rory inquired, as she continued with her perusal, not yet catching on enough to become distracted entirely.

"All I knew is that we had something to do with wildcats," he said, waiting for the inevitable moment to come.

Rory's eyes slipped down another line and she looked up at Jess, almost unable to breathe.

"Salutatorian?" she wondered, quietly but unyieldingly proud. He nodded casually, not really looking at her.

"I just thought you should…know," he said while she kept reading. He was the one anticipatory now. Rory's excitement had faded when she thought she had gotten the bulk of her news, still reading the letter.

"This is amazing. But did you need to bring me out here now to tell me that you were smart? Of course I know you're brilliant. Not that seeing the transcript didn't make me happy, it's thrilling. And it's even more ridiculous that they wanted to flunk you out last semester. Didn't they read this?" she rambled while he smiled slightly.

"That's kind of the thing. This isn't it," he said as he took back the letter and moved to take out the Yale envelope. She stopped him.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" she said, apparently distraught. He turned to look at her, the darkness settling deeper into her eyes as she looked at him with the fear that had settled for dead into the deepest regions of her subconscious.

She felt the dread heavily and metallic, causing the slouch in her spine to worsen, the blue of her eyes to dissipate into an impersonal gray.

He had been her umbrella of constancy, fairly steady in his recklessness, but never faltering in physical position. The idea of him leaving her though, was simply ludicrous. She couldn't help but freeze when the realization hit like a cold winter morning that decimated the uncertainty of autumn.

It was a horrible uncertainty of closure that plagued her so superficially. He could see it so well and so deliberately. She had a red hot fear in her eyes that she would be alone and a secondary fear that she didn't remember how to be.

Jess adjusted the way he was sitting so he could see her better. Though he was offended that after talking about how he could so much better all the time, she was now upset with him for considering it.

"I don't know," he managed, trying to look her in the eye. The tears welled in her eyes, still looking down.

"You promised," she said shakily, her hand pulling aside a lock of her hair. "You said that you weren't going to leave me and now you want to. What the hell is that about?"

He paled. His olive skin turned white and a slick, sick, twisted, cold feeling slid into his stomach. Fear for making her angry. Fearing that he'd lose her too.

"Rory-," he started. She cut in.

"Please, just. Just don't," she begged, a tear rolling out and hitting the water, making miniature ripples that didn't quite make it to shore.

He didn't know what made him get angry at the moment. Maybe it was the fact that she demanded more of him and then second-guessed him when he decided to make more of himself.

_Yeah, that's probably it_, he thought.

"Look," he said, his voice hitting a tone that was built to sting. "You don't know half of this story. And you're the one that goes on and on about how I shouldn't hold myself back from what I know I'm capable of. I'm capable of going to college, on a real, GPA related level. You can't go on and get pissed about it," he said.

She let more tears fall.

"You promised me that you weren't leaving me. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself if I lose you again," she said, the tears thick in her voice. "I don't want another absence without goodbye."

He looked at her with a surge of compassion, knowing that her tears were unnecessary. If she saw the letter she'd understand that he was willing to go to greater lengths to be with her constantly than none to be with her frequently.

"Fine," he said, taking out the Yale envelope and holding it out to her, refusing to look at her anymore. He was stung by her assumptions, stung by her lack of trust. He loved her, didn't she know that?

She saw the white flash out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn't initially take it from him and accept the truth. She didn't have the humility to admit that she had probably overreacted. But he was leaving her, for God's sake. Leaving. The one thing he had done once that had broken her in two absolute pieces.

"Just take the damn envelope Rory, Jesus," he said, putting it in her hand and engaging her in the intrigue of the Yale insignia and professional lettering.

The tears stopped as quickly as they had started and she was conscious again. Still unsure, she slid her hand in and pulled out the application.

"I didn't know how to tell you. Only you and Luke know, so if you don't mind, keep it a secret from your mom. She'll torture me mercilessly with it and I don't know what I'll do if she makes fun of me for being smart for once."

"When did you…?" she trailed off, not knowing what to do or say for the stupidity blocking her brain and her windpipe, wrapping like serpentine monsters of guilt around her vocal cords. The beasts that made it impossible for her to dig herself out of her accusations.

It was more distinctly, her foot in her mouth.

All the way, almost down her throat, in her mouth.

"I sent out for the application a few weeks ago, paid for it, yadda yadda yadda," he said, fingering the seam in his jeans. "I have a few others, they came already. Southern Connecticut State, Hartford Community, University of Hartford, stuff like that."

"You can do this," she said, sniffling and pushing the tears off of her face. "I know you can, and...," she started, but couldn't finish.

He lifted her face with his hand, the gentlest touch.

"And?"

"And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose it. But I'm too afraid. I can't handle that kind of fear. It's numbing, the thought of you leaving me, being alone. All of it. I haven't been alone in a long time. I've been spoiled rotten and I'm not ready to give it up. I want to stay spoiled. I want the person I love to constantly be near me. And you're giving that to me for real, and it's scary as hell. Jess, you're going against almost everything you thought you believed in about school, working so hard, to be closer to me and I don't know what to do with myself. I can't be gracious enough because not only do I not know anything a whole lot worse than this, but no one has ever gone to such lengths to just be around me, if not with me.

"I don't think I've ever been so in love in my whole life. And it scares the crap out of me." Rory was sobbing at this point, so confused and struck with emotion that she was almost weak.

Jess wanted to bury her face in his shoulder for the rest of his life and never leave that moment.

"I love you. And I want to do this. I can do this. I promised, and I would never dream of breaking it."

xxx

Rory crept back through the window as silently as she had entered. She shut it and put everything as it was, crawling into her bed. She took a fleeting glimpse at the clock and realized it was 4. It was funny how two hours of being lovestruck could go so much faster than anything else.

Silent for a few minutes, she listened hard for a sign of Lorelai and when she heard nothing, she started to drift.

xxx

Jess snuck back into the diner and opened the door to the apartment, welcomed by the sound of Luke's peaceful snoring.

'Scot free,' he thought as he got back into bed, toying quietly with the idea of an eternity with the girl with the angel face.

**Any good? Let me know…you know how ;). **


	10. Obsinate or Psycho?

**A/N-Sorry this has taken me so long. This story is requiring a lot more thought than **_**Falling Away With You**_** for some reason. I'm trying to put as much emotion into the chapters leading up to 15. I think there will try to be another sequel to chronicle their summers and whatnot. Let me know what you think!**

After only a few meager hours of deep sleep, Rory woke up to her mother staring at her with a demonic grin. She groaned and rolled over, throwing her arm over her face, trying to pretend that she wasn't there.

"I _hate_ when you stare at me and pretend like you aren't trying to wake me up," she said, her voice muffled from behind her arm. Lorelai grinned a little more and relinquished the cup of coffee to her daughter.

"I had a dream," Lorelai said. Rory looked at her plainly.

"Do we need to go through this right now?"

"Yes."

"Just checking." Rory tried to sit up better in bed and waited for her mother to begin.

"Well, here's the thing about this 'dream.' I don't really remember what happened or who was in it, but it was important and it might have had _something_ to do with chocolate covered espresso beans. Interpret!" she demanded, waving and pointing a finger at her daughter, who was still curled up in the arms of slumber.

Rory took a long sip from the cup, swallowed, and handed it back to her mother, burrowing back into her blankets. Lorelai stood up and stared at her for another few moments, poking her in the shoulder.

"What?" Rory asked, snappish.

"You-you didn't interpret. I cannot walk out of this room without an interpretation!" Lorelai said, lost without her explanation.

"I suppose it could mean that you spend way too much time thinking about coffee and chocolate. It's about time they fused in your subconscious."

Lorelai shrugged. "That works for me."

It took Rory a few seconds to realize that Lorelai wasn't moving off of her bed and out of her room while she laid there, tucked into her quilt and warmed slightly by the coffee she had just ingested.

"You're not moving, are you?" Rory asked, muffled by sleep and her face-down position.

"Nope," Lorelai said, settling into her spot. Rory sighed melodramatically and flung herself out of her bed.

"It's Sunday, naturally you realize this," Rory said as she pulled a pair of socks on and yawned. Lorelai nodded and grinned some more. Rory was confused. "It's kind of early for you to be up and about, isn't it?"

"My dream got me excited and now I'm having a really hard time calming back down," she explained. Rory nodded in acquiescence.

"Chocolate has that effect on women in this family," she said.

Lorelai sat through the silence for hardly another moment before what she really meant started to permeate her consciousness.

"Did you get your Harvard application in the mail yet?" she finally asked, the words falling without aid from her mouth. She almost regretted asking, just because she knew.

Rory stopped breathing for a second at the comment, wondering if her mother knew about the others she had received to, the stigma behind her applying at those places.

"Uh, yeah, it came yesterday," she covered, running a brush through her hair slowly. Lorelai nodded, unsure.

"Oh, good. That's great," she said, rising to her feet finally and running a hand over her clothes in an attempt to straighten them.

Rory nodded noticeably and Lorelai looked back to find her barely conscious at her window, her head almost limp.

"You're awfully tired," Lorelai noted, sauntering up behind her. "Didn't you sleep well?"

Rory's heart stopped beating for a moment and her eyes snapped open as quickly as her consciousness came to.

"Uh, no, not really," she said shakily, trying desperately to find a good excuse. "I kept waking up. I think I only slept for a few hours." Rory wanted to turn around and see what her mother thought of her excuse but was too afraid that the guilt would be obvious on her face.

"Aw poor baby," Lorelai cooed on her way around the bed, going for the door. "Coffee? I've made gallons," she tempted.

"Please?" Rory pleaded, turning to her mother with a pathetic cock of the head and bags under her eyes.

"Well, since you were so polite and look so pitiful and all," Lorelai trailed off, going for the kitchen.

Rory awkwardly padded into the kitchen with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes squinted at the sudden invasion of sunlight. She slid into her seat at the table and sat, wondering how much about the last night or so Lorelai could possibly have ascertained due to only her state and the possibility that Rory's stealth skills were few.

"Thank you," she cooed softly when her mother gently set the cup in front of her and sat on the other side of the table.

"What are your big plans for the day?" Lorelai inquired, sipping and grinning at her daughter. Rory shook her head, offhanded.

"Nothing really. Looking at my applications I guess, doing that kind of stuff. You?"

"Probably eating a lot of junk food, drinking a lot of coffee, and seeing how many people I can frustrate to the brink of insanity."

"So the usual then?"

"Pretty much."

They both sat for a little longer in the silence, and Rory was comforted by that void, the comfort that it promised. Lorelai didn't have a clue.

xxx

Jess woke up late to find Luke absent from the apartment and a note pinned to his shirt. Confused and disoriented, Jess slowly lifted his back from the mattress and fingered the piece of paper that he was attached to. With a look of the purest curiosity, he removed it delicately and read:

Come downstairs when you wake up.

Jess left the note lying on his unmade bed and quickly showered and dressed before descending the stairs into the noisy and crowded diner.

Peering curiously again, he looked from face to face, skimming for the one he so desired to see. Slightly let down by the fact that she was not yet there, and appalled that it was already 10 am, his posture fell slightly, his mind heavy at the thought of working all day long.

xxx

Luke spotted Jess come from behind the curtain and immediately halt, in search of the Gilmores. Luke knew that he wouldn't find them. Luke knew how painful it was to have your heart race so hopefully and then stop. He wanted to give him some indication that his search was going to be fruitless, some way to soften the blow of not finding them so handily accessible.

Normally, Luke would have hassled Jess for having woken up so late on a Sunday, for stalling. Luke would have made a spectacle out of Jess's unruly hair and the look in his eye that was anything but hospitable. He didn't though.

Luke nodded to him slightly and went back to the table he was working, keeping one eye on the customer and the other eye on his nephew.

Jess's heart pounded with anticipation as he let his eyes dance surreptitiously across the faces of Stars Hollow, but not one of them made that pounding stop. Instead he just ached, and hoped that all that had been said last night hadn't kept her from coming in. He wished against his own free will that she hadn't rethought everything last night as soon as she was in her warm bed and under the spell of her mother.

"Hey," Luke said genially when Jess walked past him and back behind the counter.

"Hey yourself." Jess let the conversation pause for a second, anticipating that Luke would make a snide or terse comment about how late Jess slept or how off his mood was. When nobody filled the void, they both moved to speak, neither sure of what to say.

They both wanted to say something about the application. What would Jess put on there, and how did he expect to get in? Who would he get recommendations from? How much did that thing _cost_? Luke's head was flooded constantly with questions regarding that dense white envelope that held the key to either Jess's future or demise.

Jess made the decision and walked away from Luke, picked up his tablet and began to move lazily and lethargically through the Sunday morning haze.

Homework, duty, the weekend catching up with you. Everything smells like a continental breakfast and your pajamas hang heavy on your limbs. Everyone's wearing glasses and sleeping late.

Everybody, however, did _not_ sneak out at two in the morning. That was something for just the two of them this morning. Even though they were so far apart, it bound them unbreakably. It gave him some comfort that morning, as he floated on an unsettling cloud of fried bacon and tacky maple syrup, knowing how bound they were, that she now composed his own private atmosphere. It was the tiniest film of air around him that was nothing but her hair, her voice, her touch.

For the first time in a long time, Jess took the time to breathe deep and take it in, letting his body carefully analyze each molecule.

xxx

"When are we going to get cracking on that Harvard application?" Lorelai asked while she and Rory walked through the chilly yet humid February air on their belated stroll to Luke's.

"Hm?" Rory said, coming out of a daze. These sidewalks had seen her not so long ago, felt her foot falls only hours before, and the clouds left behind from her breath had not yet fallen in anonymity. She looked at Lorelai as she had for most of her life. Innocently. Even though Rory didn't particularly qualify at that moment, it was the same face. It would always be the same face. Rory was never the criminal. She carefully calculated her life so that she was the perfect victim.

Someone unsuspecting and usually dear to her was the equally perfect criminal.

"Your application! The very key to your future! One of the many pieces of paper that, in your lifetime, will decide the succeeding years of your life!" Lorelai enthused, gesticulating wildly. Rory smiled at her widely.

"You've gone cuckoo," Rory said, grinning disapprovingly at her mother's antics.

"This is epic! Important! It's our best shot at a Scorsese movie!" Lorelai continued, ignoring her daughter.

"It's a piece of paper with some blanks," Rory said.

"Really thick, Ivy League, rich people paper though!" Lorelai justified as they reached the door. Rory shook her head with the funny smile still lingering on her face and opened the door for them both.

"And _really_ big blanks," she continued, once inside. "Like, twenty-two letters per name. That's long."

"She's crazy, I don't recommend giving her coffee _or_ food this morning," Rory said, referring to her mother as Luke wandered by.

Luke grinned at them, relieved at their presence.

"Psst! Sparky!" Lorelai called to him. Luke dragged himself over, coffee pot in hand, and stood before her.

"Don't call me Sparky. And can I help you?" he said, sounding bored. Lorelai responded by grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him down so she could whisper into his ear indiscreetly.

"You'd be straight out of your mind to deny me, and you know why," she said, winking just as visibly. Luke flushed momentarily and nodded. She planted a quick kiss on him before he took himself back behind the counter and to fill their mugs. Rory glared at her mother insincerely.

"It's almost disturbing how much you're able to command that man."

"I know, how cool?" Lorelai said, smiling uncontrollably. Jess wandered over with mugs in hand and set them in front of the women. His posture indicated that he was uncomfortable but his smile seemed true, so only Rory was privy to his embarrassment.

"Hello, diner nephew," Lorelai said, her goofiness still not slowing down.

"Morning," he said to her, looking down as he replaced an empty ketchup bottle. "Food?" he asked, somewhat more pleasant.

"Waffles," Lorelai declared as she lifted her mug skyward.

"Eggs," Rory said, smiling at him brightly. He grinned at her a little and she snuck her arm into the inside of his elbow before he could back away with their orders. "And this," she said, kissing him. It had started out as an innocent peck of reassurance, but quickly it became apparent that their lips were lingering a little longer and their nerve endings were almost glowing, even to the naked eye.

"Annnnd break!" Lorelai exclaimed as the two parted unwillingly and Jess swaggered all the way back to the kitchen.

Rory blushed visibly when she saw Lorelai's face and knew that somewhere behind her absurdity, there was a shred of honesty. She had an unmistakable talent at gently pushing an unfavorable truth. She lied with an ease that was supernatural. She was business casual. As much as she hated it and as much as she tried to pull away, so much of it was engrained in her DNA, in her blood. It coursed through her system undeniably and she could hardly stand it.

"Tell me something interesting," Lorelai said a few moments later, when the blush on Rory's face had subsided into her signature porcelain and the silence built around them for a couple of seconds. Rory grinned at her mother, but knew for certain that she daren't go too far.

"I was on the internet yesterday and I found out that Jess's old high school had a wildcat cub as its mascot," Rory said, smiling to herself and to her mother. Carefully sidestepping, Rory hoped that she could make her mother laugh her way into liking Jess. There could not be any pushing, no shoving, no telling anybody what to do. Rory had already tried that.

Lorelai laughed heartily and buckled over her coffee mug, her hand up as to signify that soon enough, she would be able to catch her breath.

"Okay, it was funny, not that funny," Rory said, narrowing her eyes slightly at her mother's hysterics.

"Rowr," Lorelai said mockingly, which again pitched her right back into her previous laughing fit.

From across the room, Luke spotted her and promptly rolled his eyes in an alloy of exasperation and adoration. He wanted to mirror her silliness, add to the repartee. Suddenly he was moving, and disapproval was drawn on his face subconsciously.

Lorelai saw him move from behind the counter and start toward them. She knew that he would stand there for a few seconds, waiting for her to catch her breath and explain the insanity. She was sure that he'd make a comment about her coffee-induced psychosis and be off again, to do his thing and make her feel as unique as she was.

Which is exactly why he took her coffee cup and kept on moving.

"Hey!" she screeched to him while Jess and Rory watched the situation, their eyes goose eggs.

"I'd rather have you obstinate than psycho."

xxx

Back at home, as Lorelai shuffled through Rory's desk, in search of her Motley Crue biography, she felt her blood stop running as she laid her hand over the top of the four _other_ applications that Rory had sent away for.

xxx

His hand was sliding just above the waistband of her jeans and her head was lolled back in complete and total submission while they spent their Sunday afternoon on that couch upstairs. Her hair was relaxed down and his was strewn about his eyes, ungelled and incredibly sexy.

The stonewashed strip of fabric that Jess had been toying with for the last few minutes was taunting him unendingly. He knew that only a matter of inches below it was something that he had been after for a long, long time.

But then again, they only had ten minutes.

Rory was the first to hear the egg timer that they had set up behind the couch. She slowly brought her head up and looked Jess in the eye for a few seconds, hoping that she could stare him out of his focus. Both eyes were dilated and fixated entirely on the strip of skin that he had been obsessing about for the past seven minutes.

"Jess," she finally said, her voice thick with passion and sadness at their fun being put on hold, just long enough for their nerves to cool and their heart rates to return to normal.

"Hmm?" he said, slowly looking back up at her. Her eyelashes were thick over her eyes as she looked down at him and he slowly began to hear the ringing, faint from the other side of him.

"Thirty second warning," she said, gesturing behind her. With unimaginable agility, he jumped off of the couch, crouched behind it to retrieve their notebooks and to turn off the egg timer, and came back to the couch. He laid their things on the coffee table and watched in awe as Luke wandered in just as their countdown ended, rummaged through the other side of the room while mumbling his explanation, and returned to the diner, one rubber ducky richer.

When he left and their incredulity had the time to fade, Jess pulled her back to him. Mid-kiss he managed to remember what he had been meaning to ask her.

"Do you plan on telling Lorelai about the other applications?"

She cocked her head at him oddly. "What do you mean?" she wondered.

"Are you going to tell her or wait until you know what you've gotten into?" he asked again, more elaborate. Their positions were still compromising, though neither seemed to notice.

Rory let the words slide around in her head for a second and marry with her intentions. "I guess so.I never really intended to keep it from her. Why?"

"You know she's going to find out eventually, right? I mean, it's Lorelai. Sooner or later, she figures out everything," he said, all-knowing.

"Let's hope later rather than sooner then, huh?" Rory said, trying to joke him out of his rationality.

"I'm just saying that it might be better for you to come out and tell her than for her to just find out," he tried to explain, sighing the rest of his breath.

"What exactly are you insinuating?"

"Nothing. I'm just talking," he said, shrugging at her.

"Does Luke already know about Yale?" she asked, incredulous.

"It's not like I get the mail. He figured it out," he explained.

"Are you saying that I should just come out and tell my mom that I don't know if I want to go to Harvard anymore?" she said, her voice shaking and rising.

"No. I'm saying that she's going to think that way if you don't just tell her that you sent away for more applications just in case."

"I somehow don't think she'll see it that way," she argued.

"You don't need her permission to explore other options," Jess fired back.

"You do know that you're talking about my mom, right?"

"I'm applying other places."

"That's not the problem. It's not just the applying. It's the confidence. My mom is dead-set on my getting into Harvard. I've been working for this since I can remember. If I start to doubt myself, she might feel like a failure."

"Rory, you're allowed to do whatever you want. She's going to be pissed at first, but it's you two, come on. She'll get over it, she usually does," he tried to reconcile. Rory pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and felt the slippery feeling of worry slide through her slowly.

"Do you think I should tell her today?" she wondered quietly.

"Couldn't hurt," Jess finished, hugging her to him comfortingly.

xxx

Rory walked home, her feet heavy and her neck too weak to support all of the worst-case scenarios she was envisioning. In her mind, Lorelai screamed, she argued, she came to the verge of tears. She threatened to tear up the other applications, yelled at her grandparents for brainwashing her into wanting to go anywhere other than Harvard. She called the school and cursed them for demanding that Rory apply to more than 3 schools.

"Home," Rory called, walking through the house, searching for her mom.

"Mom?" she called, walking through the kitchen and into her room.

Lorelai was sitting on her bed, holding the other envelopes in her hands. Her eyes were wide, maybe a little hurt, but at terms with the decision.

"Mom," Rory tried to apologize. Lorelai shook her head.

"I get it. It's okay. I was angry, I screamed some, threw one of your books, cried for a second there, but it's okay. I understand."

"Mom, please don't be upset," she begged as her mother stood and left the envelopes on her dresser.

"Baby, I'm not upset. I told you, I understand."

"I don't think you do," Rory countered.

"You want choices, and that's okay. I like choices. That's why they have a million different flavors of Pop-Tarts and a bazillion kinds of Post-It notes."

"I think you're trying too hard to be all right with this."

Lorelai turned around and took Rory by the shoulders, looking her in the eye, seeming far less vacant than only moments before.

"Rory, you're going to be great, no matter what you do or where you go to college. Princeton, Yale, Harvard, whatever. Any other parent would kill to be able to say that their kid could get into any of these schools without a problem. Whatever you decide, I'm going to back you, even if it isn't Harvard."

"Thanks," Rory said, blushing and smiling shyly at Lorelai.

"Now," she said, letting her hands off of her shoulders and dropping them at her sides, "we have got a pile of movies over there, and I have a secret stash of Red Vines hidden in the oven."

"Tricky, tricky," Rory said, moving for the oven and removing the candy. Lorelai returned with the movies in her hands.

"We've got _Raging Bull_, _The Wizard of Oz, Forrest Gump, Platoon, _and _Star Wars_. Ideas?"

"Oldest to newest," Rory provided, chewing the Red Vine that was now clenched tightly and defensively in her hand.

"I agree," Lorelai said, moving for the living room. Together they piled onto the couch, and Rory silently began wondering how to come out and say that she wanted to go to Yale more than just about anything.

**Love me please….**


	11. Pollyanna Blue Fingers or Big Envelopes

**My muse is a day late and a dollar short. **

**I do not own this. Or any characters. No names. Nada. K?**

"I think I'm starting to thaw," Rory said to Jess as she lay beside him on the bridge, taking in the first beam of sunlight their spring had seen yet.

February had been filled with slush and cold, stinging rains that soaked through winter jackets and hooded sweatshirts. March had been, for the most part, exactly the same, except slightly warmer with heavier, more soaking rain.

And here they were in April, taking in the first sunny and dry day they had seen in a long time.

"Yeah, I think my fingers have changed from purple to slightly pale blue. That's an improvement, right?" Jess asked, joking as he observed his hands. Rory sat up and took one of them between hers and blew on it, rubbing it to bring the color back.

"If you didn't insist on reading outside, without gloves, _all winter long_, you probably wouldn't have this problem," she said, looking at him. Though her tone was scolding, they both knew she loved it.

He smirked at her like she knew he would. "You love my cold hands, you know it." She narrowed her eyes and took the other hand, doing the same thing.

"Not when you sneak up on me and put them on the back of my finally warm neck." He smiled at her and she retorted. "Jerk."

"Ouch," he said, taking his hand away from hers. She looked alone.

"Hey!" She snatched it back up and warmed it again. They sat together for a while and he looked at her as she absently rubbed his hand between her two warm, pale ones.

"Is it time to check the mail yet? Or have you done that four hundred times already today?" She glared at him again.

"Only twice." Rory looked at her watch. "Ooh! It is time!" She stood up and dragged him off of the bridge, moving in the direction of home.

"You know what time the mail comes at. I don't know why we have to do this over and over and _over_ again," he said, dragging his feet behind her as she coaxed him to match her pace.

"Just in case. C'mon Pollyanna." When they finally were within eyeshot of the mailbox, Rory seemed to jump three feet in the air and screech to a halt. The flag was up.

They had done this every day for three weeks now, and it was especially bad on Saturdays. _"I just want you with me when I get them,"_ she had said, when she first dragged him out of work to do this. Though he did not share her enthusiasm outwardly, he had to admit that the prospect of them getting into college had been fantastical.

Jess had wondered for six months before he even sent away for his application how he planned on getting in. Grades alone could not drive him in the right direction. The prospect of being salutatorian at Star's Hollow High would not be enough. There needed to be an extra push. Some kind of force to push him to the front of the herd.

He had called it _Blue Eyes_ when he sent it to the publisher. Jess could think of no better title for a book that was almost all about the way those blue eyes saved him.

Eighteen publishers had been sent copies of the manuscript that he had diligently spent the winter typing up as he alternately scribbled down new chapters in that tattered Five Star that Rory hated so very, very much.

Seventeen rejection letters had found their way into his mailbox by January. It was no wonder that Jess was somewhat unenthusiastic about the mail delivery.

But one letter of inquiry had also found its way.

By the time February had begun and March was showing her teeth, he had edited, reedited, and edited once more his beloved story of discovery through the covers of classics and the color of her lips and eyes. He had torn it apart and put it back together countless times.

It was in print by the end of March.

Jess had told Rory that the book was going to be published, and also told her that when the final draft was sent and the first copy was sent to him, that she would be the first to read it. But not a moment sooner.

She had stomped her feet, threatened him with all manner of evils, including but not limited to holding out until _long_ after graduation. Jess wouldn't budge, and he knew she'd concede anyway.

Four more copies had been requested. All four were sent, as soon as they arrived, to the four schools he had applied to in Connecticut with letters enclosed, explaining why he believed he had not only the drive but the accompanying desire that would see him through to commencement at each school.

Now he was a little bit excited about the mail, but equally wary of its arrival. It could bring just as much good news as bad.

"It's here!" she squealed, in the exact same way she did every day. She dropped his hand and ran, hair flying behind her as her jacket bellowed open against the breeze. She turned her head for a moment to see how far behind he was. "Hurry up!"

Jess broke into a light jog and arrived at the mailbox about the time she had the lip of the door ceremoniously gripped between her forefinger and her thumb.

"Go on!" he urged her as she looked at him, apprehensive. Today felt different than the other days. Maybe it was the sun or the warmth of the breeze or maybe it was just her lighthearted playfulness that showed itself for the first time in weeks. But something about this Saturday was definitely different. The air was electric with the promise of a yes or no.

Rory let out a breath that she had held for a solid thirty seconds and quickly opened the door.

There five rather large envelopes inside, mixed among catalogues and water bills. Rory just looked at them and her face went pale.

"I have to call my mom," she said, taking her phone out of her jacket pocket and trying to dial with shaking hands. Jess smiled at her but was too busy being excited for her and afraid for himself to offer any sort of witty retort.

xxx

"Independence Inn, this is Michel. No. Goodbye." Lorelai stared at the back of him. The phone rang again. "Independence Inn, this is Michel. No. Goodbye."

Lorelai cleared her throat and Michel stopped inches from hanging up the phone.

"Who was that?" she asked sternly, though her face was the picture of calm. She came up beside him at the front desk and he turned to the side to look at her.

"I hate my job. If you will not let me quit, then I intend to sabotage myself," he said, sounding frantic.

"Since when do you _hate_ your job?" she asked, her face puckered slightly.

"Since today."

"I never said you couldn't quit, Michel. If you're unhappy, you're free to go." He huffed and puffed his chest out a little.

"Fine. I quit." Lorelai moved to walk past him and patted his shoulder.

"Sure you do," she reassured. Michel looked aggravated and threw his arms to his side, his face reddening slightly.

"You see! It's that! That assumptive tone!"

"What assumptive tone?" she asked, looking as innocent as possible, a portfolio in her hands.

"That assumptive tone, you horrid, horrid woman." The phone rang again and Lorelai smiled.

"You know you're going to answer it."

"You know nothing," he said, trying hard to ignore the ringing. Lorelai just smirked at him as the ringing began to quickly grate on his nerves. "Oh fine!"

"Ah ha!"

"Independence Inn, this is Michel." He paused and tried to comprehend the person on the other line. Lorelai kept watching to make sure he didn't hang up on anybody else. "One moment," he said slowly, clasping one end of the receiver in his hand and pointing it at Lorelai.

"It's your daughter. She sounds frantic." Her face lit up and she snatched the phone away from Michel and shooed him away from her. He was standing much too closely.

"We have envelopes! There are envelopes in the mailbox!" Though the statement was absurd and obscure, Lorelai immediately understood.

"I'm hitting the ground running. Give me five, sweets," she said, slamming the phone back onto the receiver and quickly running out the door in the direction of home.

"Can I quit now?" Michel asked as she made for the door.

"No!" Lorelai said as she ran.

xxx

"Are you sure they're big envelopes?" Rory asked Jess, her arms across her chest in concern as he peered into the box.

"I think so. But this would be a lot easier if you would let me move some stuff around-," she cut him off.

"No! Don't touch anything! Not until my mom gets here."

"Rory, why can't I move the catalogue to see how big this one is?"

"Everything must remain exactly as it was when I opened the mailbox until she gets here. You know my mother. Can you imagine what would happen if I had this moment without her?" she asked, frantic with the slightest shard of fear in her eyes.

"Good point," Jess said, shoving his hands and his pockets and taking a few steps backwards, not willing to be at fault where Lorelai or her daughter's admission into college were concerned.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" Lorelai screamed as she ran awkwardly up the driveway and skidded precariously to a halt on the heels of her stiletto boots. She took pause. "It is really nice out today," she said, looking around and up at the clear blue sky.

"Isn't it?" Jess added, not knowing that he was prolonging the wait for their answers.

"Enough pleasantries and small talk!" Rory said, hysterical. "We need to look at these," she said, pointing into the mailbox.

Lorelai smiled widely at her and peered into the box with the other two. "They're big," she said quietly, as if she were looking into some sacred place.

"Yeah," Rory added, just above a whisper. Jess remained silent, ever the spectator into their secret, complex life.

"You want to do the honors?" Rory shook her head fiercely.

"I can't, I'm too nervous. You do it." She paused and Lorelai made to remove them. "Wait! I don't want to know!"

"Rory," Jess said, smiling at her incorrigible attitude toward this moment.

She took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay, I'm ready now."

Reaching a slender hand inside, Lorelai removed the mail and rifled through it, tossing her bills and magazines back inside, now only holding the five envelopes.

All of them were big.

"Big is good," Rory affirmed to herself. The other two nodded. Lorelai opened the first one.

"Princeton says…," Lorelai removed the letter. "Yes!" Rory grinned wildly and Jess took her hand as a congratulatory gesture.

Lorelai put the open envelope on the bottom and moved to open the next one.

"Columbia says…," she said, tearing into it. "Yes!" She smiled wider and Jess squeezed her hand again.

"Two down, three to go," Lorelai said as she moved onto the next. "Brown…yes!"

"Get to the good stuff," Rory pleaded, barely able to bite back her concern for the last two.

"Yale says…," Lorelai looked her daughter in the eye as reassurance as he ripped it open. "Yes!"

Jess moved his hand to her neck and rubbed it to calm her as her nerves began to take over.

"It smells like success on all fronts," Lorelai said as she opened the Harvard envelope. "Harvard wants you, babe!" The girls jumped up and down, screaming their excitement while he looked on, smiling openly at their excitement.

"I got into them all!" Rory said to him, holding his arms and planting a kiss on him. Her hands moved up to his face and he wove his fingers into her hair, kissing her back as a final congratulation.

"Okay, time for different more family appropriate celebration. Luke's!" Lorelai exclaimed, starting off in the direction, turning back slightly to wait for the two. They were holding hands and Lorelai wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulders, hugging her to herself.

"I can't believe I got into them all," Rory said, awestruck as Lorelai hugged her tighter and Jess held tight to her hand.

"I'm proud of you babe," she said, releasing her. The walk over would have been and interesting sight if all three had been linked together, and it was a thought all of them had simultaneously, though none voiced nor shared the thought.

"We have to check your mail when we get to the diner, okay?" Rory said, gripping his hand tightly. Jess smiled and nodded, not sure that he would fare as well as she had. There were lots of factors that could ruin her euphoria today.

Scenario one: Jess doesn't get the responses and Rory tries to reassure him that it's neither a good nor a bad sign. He, after all, did send it in after her. Maybe they just haven't gotten to his yet.

Scenario two: Jess gets the responses, but doesn't make it into all of his schools. Maybe Southern Connecticut State, but not Yale. Not that one he fought for the hardest. She would tell him what a great school SCSU was and how proud she was, but he would not feel the excitement like she would.

Scenario three: Jess gets the responses, and gets into none of the schools. Rory assures him that all the admissions officers at the schools he applied to are idiots and can't see his genius. She demands that they drive to New Haven and have very serious discussions with their deans of admissions.

And then there was number four. Oh how he tried to ignore number four. Number four got his hopes up and he hated when that happened.

Scenario four: Jess makes it into all of the schools. Rory's head explodes with pride and Jess becomes catatonic from the shock. Luke refuses to believe it. Lorelai is actually surprised into being quiet.

It was all very complex and in its own way, rather unpleasant.

Jess nodded in accord with her and gave her a small, unsure smile. He was trying not to be depressing when she had just had one of the most victorious days of her life. A landmark in her education. A huge part of her life. A moment she would never forget. He had the privilege of being there. He tried to remember that as they walked and her step sprung with glee.

"Hey," she said, noting his concern. "No matter what, I am more proud of you than I have been of anyone. Like, ever. Jess; you wrote a book. It's _published_. There's a price under the barcode. That's amazing."

He shook his head at her and smiled while Lorelai politely pretended not to hear a word.

"Whatever," he said, grinning but closing up because of her mother's presence.

Rory didn't care. And not just because it was the polite thing to do.

"We have business to take care of my luvah!" Lorelai declared as she swung the door open with a flourish and stomped with authority to the counter.

"Don't call me that. And hello," Luke said, looking embarrassed as he leaned over the counter to greet her with a kiss. "What kind of business."

"We need to celebrate and Jess needs to check the mail," Lorelai said, beaming and trying to hold in her giddiness. Luke moved his head in question and Lorelai took a calming breath. "Rory got into all of her schools!" she said, maintaining her tone under a scream.

Luke's eyes bugged out and he smiled widely. "Oh my God! Congratulations! What do you want? I'll make you anything you want. Name it," Luke said, his hands looking for something to do. He wanted to hug her, but their relationship had complicated since her relationship with Jess had intensified.

"First, I want you to point me in the direction of the mail. Then I want a burger and fries," she smiled. Luke smiled back at her.

"It's upstairs," he said with a smile as she took Jess's hand again and dragged him up the stairs, confident that everything would be fine.

No matter what.

"Rory," Jess said as they came to the door. His words made her stop short and she turned to him, silently begging the question. "I'm so happy for you. And regardless of what's in the mail and even if I didn't get into college, you should know that I'm happy for you. And that I'll go where you go. And I won't leave you. I can't."

Tears dared to well in Rory Gilmore's eyes like magnifying glasses over her electric blue eyes, but she bit them back and kissed him instead.

"I know. Now come on!" she said, whipping the door open unceremoniously and hustling for the kitchen table. Jess chuckled as they walked in and both saw the envelopes lying there.

Four were very, very large. Larger than life. Larger than he ever could have comprehended.

She held his arm and they stood a few feet away, taking in the sight.

"Look at them. Remember this moment. Memorize how this feels. Smell the air a few times and commit it to memory. You only get this once. It should never be something you look back on hazily." Jess turned to her as her tunnel vision towards the papers continued.

"Nice speech. How long did that take."

"Five minutes. It was pretty short."

"One of those rare, 'less is more' things?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, nodding at the table. She looked at him and tried to contain her anticipation while she looked at him, while his face pleaded with her, looking exhausted but happy.

"Do we really have to open them?"

"Yup. And we're going to. Together." He gave in.

"Fine. But I'm not opening them. You can read them to me," he said as she took off for the last three feet to the table and picked up the first two envelopes. The other two that seemed to mean a little more she left on the table.

"Yes and," she said, taking the letter out of the next envelope. "Yes! The state schools of Connecticut seem to like the way you wrote your name on the application! Congratulations!" she said, smiling at him. His tenseness hadn't yet gone away.

He sighed as she glared at him to calm down and she picked up the remaining two.

"SCSU?" he asked, peering over the edge to get a good look at the seal on the envelope. Rory nodded as she let her hands devour the thick paper and pull out the piece of paper.

"Congrats! Another yes!" Jess smiled at her.

SCSU was in New Haven. Worse comes to worse, they could at least live in the same city. His heart calmed slightly.

Yale would still be his dream. Yale would be perfect.

Jess Mariano didn't much believe in perfect. There were some things that seemed perfect.

Like Rory's touch; that was _perfect_.

But his life? Nothing in it had ever even resembled adequately okay.

"Are you ready?" she asked, slowly lifting the Yale envelope off of the counter. "This could be it. Are you ready?" He nodded, not all that happy with her for building the tension even higher. It nearly shot out of the roof it was so strong and tall already.

She moved it away from her face and made to speak again, but Jess caught her before she could start.

"Rory, please," he begged, sounding strained. Her ears, had they been anything like a Doberman's, would have and seemed to regardless, prick forward as she sensed his need for her to carry on. Smiling somewhat sheepishly, she opened the envelope slowly, deftly, careful not to damage anything inside.

She pulled out the paper and started to cry.

"You got in." She started out quiet, calmed by the news. Her tears fell for a few seconds and his face went completely pale in astonishment. Had he not been so consumed with trying to maintain his masculinity, Jess would have fainted and fallen right onto that floor.

"I got in," he quietly replied, still staring at her and the papers in her hands.

"You got in!" she screamed, jumping over a chair to where he stood, still stricken. She wrapped her arms around him and the heat from her body acted as a resuscitation for him.

He returned her hug with the same amount of enthusiasm and couldn't help but feeling like a complete and total success. Take that Liz.

They pulled apart only slightly and momentarily so that they could connect at the lips and pretty soon their kisses were verging on out of control. Rory even laughed against his mouth when he pressed her against the kitchen wall and tore her hands from his back, pressing her arms against the wall over her head.

She writhed to touch him and he kept fighting her back, determined to have this moment. This moment where he would always remember the smell and the colors and the way she let out tiny little breaths.

Finally regaining control, and both secretly fearing that Luke or Lorelai were bound to ascend those stairs and break into the apartment at any moment, they released from the lip-lock and held onto one another, their foreheads pressed together.

Jess strained to regain his breath.

"Technically," he said first, starting to smile a little, "I don't see this as any different than graduating." Rory looked into his eyes and he smiled at her a little wider, just like a little kid going for cute when asking for something they knew they weren't bound to get.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves just quite yet sparky."

"Sparky?"

"You know, like sonny boy or whipper snapper. Sparky's just a little nicer of a way to express the same sentiment." Jess looked her in the eye and, funnily enough, there was a little spark of something there. That spark was mischief.

"I've got some nicknames up my sleeve too," he said quietly, toying with the hem of her shirt. She detached herself and grabbed his hand, moving to go down the stairs.

"Let's talk over lunch." He just smiled at her brightness as they walked into the diner again. She stopped partway down the stairs and looked at his fingers.

"What?" he asked, looking at her face as she expressionlessly observed them.

"Your hands. They're regular colored. Kinda pink," she noted. He simply shook his head at her and she kept on going down the stairs. "It's a nice change from blue."


End file.
